Baking Institute

I went to Baking Institute this morning for my tasting. Igor was very nice, welcoming and as the bride, made me feel special. He took the liberty of tweaking my cake choices and did a wonderful job. I loved the cakes, and he was very flexible and accommodating. It was a great a great experience. Thanks so much Igor! I’ll post follow up after the wedding.

Created the exact cake I wanted for my August wedding. It was beautiful and perfect. And everyone including someone who has been in the bakery industry for 25 years also said it tasted delicious. Check out the photo. Purple and white sparkly flower cake.

The cake was delicious and gorgeous. All the guests loved the cake. They exceeded our expectations. Our wedding cake was everything we asked for and completely what we had pictured. It was absolutely beautiful. Thank you so much for great work.

Holy Cow our wedding cake was amazing. I picked a picture off of pinterest to go with our parisian theme, and they replicated it perfectly! I was so pleased. We also got a sweet table through them and our guests loved both the cake and the sweets! Thanks so much Igor!

This review is nearly four months overdue but I wanted to give credit and thanks to the wonderful staff and Igor (Head baker) @ the baking institute. The baking institute was one of our vendors for our wedding this past year and they did a great job with our cake selection.
At first when My husband and I arrived for our first appointment and cake tasting, we weren’t sure what type/​flavor or design of cake we wanted. After looking at several Pinterest photos, the task of choosing seemed daunting. There’s just so many things to consider when choosing «The Cake» but Igor helped smooth that whole process over by simply asking some basic questions like: What’s our color scheme? What does my dress look like? What cake flavors do we like/don’t like? What are the flowers we’ve chosen? And from all that info, he was able to design a cake that was to both my husband’s and my liking!
Overall, everyone enjoyed the look and most importantly the taste of the cake. I would highly recommend this place to anyone considering a purchase from the baking institute. They are by appointment only so please call ahead.

The Baking Institute did a beautiful job on our wedding cake! Not only did they sit down with us for the tasting to talk through various cake/​frosting flavor combinations, but they also incorporated all of our design requests. Compliments poured into us all night on how beautiful the cake was and how delicious it tasted!

Our cake was included in our catering package with our reception venue, so apart from the finished product, I really do not have a basis for comparing The Baking Institute with its competitors. The less-​than-​perfect rating is really due to our tasting, which was hands-​down the most underwhelming vendor appointment we had. First off, it was a little disappointing that you are only given a very limited number of flavors (three, if I remember correctly) to try for free. When we arrived at their office, the guy we met with showed us to our table without introducing himself, and after we had tasted the flavors we requested, he asked us how we wanted our cake designed without any real guidance. We scrambled through the relatively small portfolio they had to see what our options were. After our appointment, we did some more research and e-​mailed them for updates to our design.
The bulk of the rating is, of course, based on the finished product. Our cake was beautiful and designed just as requested, and both flavors were delicious. Even those among our guests who generally do not like cake raved about how good, fresh, and tasty our wedding cake was!

WE loved our cake! We got so many compliments on it and it was exactly what we were hoping for. Only thing I would suggest would be sending the bride and groom home with large pieces of cake to enjoy the night of cake tasting. However, our cake was a hit on the day of the wedding. We got married at Venuti’s so they sent us here and you won’t be let down.

They did an excellent job, brought in a Pinterest picture and they did exactly that! Looked beautiful and tasted great!

I searched all over Chicago for a bakery that would be willing to make a custom dessert for my August 2015 wedding. Specifically, my husband and I were looking to serve an Australian dessert called pavlova, which is very delicate and meringue like, and served with chantilly cream and mixed berries. Most bakeries immediately said no, because it was not a cake, so I started to lose hope that it would be possible.
When I contacted The Baking Institute, Igor not only said that it would be possible, but asked if I had a recipe I would prefer for him to use, and quoted me a price that was significantly cheaper than the other bakery that had said they could make the dessert. The final result was delicious, and Igor worked with the Chef at our wedding venue to make sure that the presentation would be compatible with serving and that the meringues did not get soggy while the other courses were served.
I would highly recommend the Baking Institute for any custom desserts— we did briefly taste their cake during the tasting and I was underwhelmed. I’m not a huge fan of fondant, though, so that was probably part of it.

I had a wonderful experience from beginning to the end. My husband and I went for our wedding cake. At the time he was my fiancé. We had no idea what we wanted and I believe his name is Igor, he helped us every step of the way. We decided on the cake we enjoyed the most and went from there. He helped with the little details. He asked to see my dress to add a details to the cake.
On the day of our wedding. The cake arrived on time, and the cake was delicious. It was everything I wanted and I’m so glad they were able to assist on our wedding day.

Everyone at the Baking Institute was so nice and easy to work with. After I came in for my tasting, I probably called at least 3 times to make changes and each time, they were extremely understanding and patient with me. Everyone at our wedding LOVED our cake. Not only did it look beautiful, but it tasted amazing!!! I would highly recommend the Baking Institute for any event that needs cake!!!

We are very happy this this place. We met for a consultation with Igor, and he was extremely knowledgeable and helped us pick a great combination and design for our wedding cake. He personalized the cake to match with my dress, and I was very impressed by his creativity. I would definitely recommend the Baking Institute.

We were recommended to go to the Baking Institute by the wedding coordinator at the place we are doing our reception. He had been spot on with his other suggestions so we thought we would give the Baking Institute a try as well. BIG MISTAKE!
We met with a man (didnt catch his name) He had a thick accent and was difficult to understand. He was extremely opinionated. He was trying to tell me what I should and should not have for my cake. I had done weeks of research and knew exactly what I wanted my cake to look like to flow with the rest of my theme. He basically told me that my idea was awful and I should go with his idea. I am open to new things but the way he did this was very rude.
If you have any type of vision at all for your cake, DONT go here!
The cakes tasted ok, nothing great or extraordinary. We wanted to go with a red velvet and carrot cake. He over charged us for those.
The price was nothing great either. We had tasted cakes at a couple fancy bakeries downtown and came to the Baking Institute because we were told that they are very reasonable with pricing. The total ended up being the same as multiple other bakeries.
In the end, we ended up going with another place that had better tasting cake and friendly service for the same price.

The Baking Institute made my wedding cake! The final product was beautiful and everyone loved how the cake tasted! I was very excited when I saw how gorgeous the cake was. The only negative I have is that they lost the ribbon I had sent them about 3 months previous that was supposed to be used on my cake. They did go out and buy new ribbon that was very pretty and used that instead. Overall, I was very happy with how the cake looked and tasted!

Our wedding was also at the Cotillion, which uses the Baking Institute for their cakes, as mentioned in other reviews.
The Baking Institute was a super-​easy vendor to work with. We scheduled a meeting and used their online form to pick out three combinations of cake type and filling. The appointment went super-​smoothly. We got to walk around their showroom of cakes and taste the three types we’d picked out. My wife came with a ton of photos and examples of what we were looking for, and we went through that with Igor who is quiet but very professional. In all, this meeting took around 20 – 30 minutes and no further work was required on our part — so I was thrilled.
We ultimately went with a white cake with apricot custard french cream. It was delicious, popular, and met all of my wife’s requests — so she was thrilled. Wouldn’t have asked for anything more.

First off, our appointment for cake tasting was not that great. The lady was really impatient with me and was not very friendly. I showed her a picture of a bow I really wanted on the top of my cake. She said she could do it exactly like that for $ 50. She sketched out what I wanted and I paid the money.
When I saw the actual cake on the wedding day, I was extremely disappointed. You know how a bow usually has two loops and 2 ends? This one was supposed to have 4 loops and 4 ends (it was a square end). Instead, it had 4 loops on top of 4 more loops = 8 loops. There were on ends… you couldn’t even tell it was a bow!
Also, there were 3 layers. We had agreed (and I think it is common sense that the bottom layer is the biggest, then the middle is the next, and the top is the small– with all of the layers increasing in size a proportional amount. This was not the case! The bottom layer was big, then the middle layer was significantly smaller (like half the size of the bottom layer), and the top was proportionally smaller to the middle. The ginormous difference in size b/​t the middle and bottom layer looked ridiculous.
I would highly NOT recommend this place. I was SO upset w/​my hideous cake!!! The lady at the appointment even bragged her cakes had been on Oprah several times… I find that hard to believe!

Our reception hall, The Cotillion, uses the Baking Institute for their wedding cakes as part of their reception packages. Originally, they double booked our appointment and had to reschedule for another day.
When we finally went in, we expected to meet with a designer or baker, but we met with an office person. She provided zero creative advice and more or less just took our order.
We tasted 3 different cakes with a variety of frostings and ended up ordering an almond cake with a hazelnut frosting. We wanted something different than your standard wedding cake and achieved just that.
Overall, we were happy with our cake, but would have liked some sort of guidance from an expert and did not receive that at all After all, I have never ordered a wedding cake before and had no idea what I was doing. I provided them my own sketch of my cake and they used this to make our cake. It came our beautifully and tasted delicious, but we basically ordered from their «menu» of options. We skipped the fake flowers and let our florist, Kimberose, decorate the cake with real roses and I’m so happy we decided against the edible flowers. Real roses were the way to go!
Would I use them again? Possibly.

I have been putting off this review for more than a few months. I helped my sister and now brother-​in-​law plan their November 2012 wedding. And many moons ago, we went to The Cotillion in Palatine to start the reception planning process. The Cotillion was using (and may still be using) the Baking Institute for the wedding cakes that are part of their reception packages. For the record, I can tell why since the finished product was beautiful and delicious. Read on for some of my other thoughts…
So, as the coordinator of all things wedding, I made an appointment to go for a tasting and planning session. That first appointment fell through as their coordinator scheduled our appointment on a day that they were already overbooked. And so we rescheduled. Okay, at least they told me and we weren’t sitting there all day.
Our appointment day came and we found their storefront in an industrial business park. Kinda odd, but I’m open minded and so we went in. The backroom was filled with some beautiful sample cake ideas. We oohed and ahhed our way around the room. Then it was time to meet the mastermind behind the perfect wedding cake. Oh wait, no it’s the office person… who doesn’t know anything about anything. I’m sorry, but it was true. Questions were swiftly avoided. Creative suggestions were non-​existent. But, she sure did think that she knew how to upsell.
We tasted three types of cake and three fillings. For the big day, we ended up with an almond cake flavor and a chocolate (hazelnut, I think) filling. It was a nice light combination of flavors. It was certainly a bit different than your average white cake with buttercream then tends to show up at weddings. I think it was a good choice.
Thankfully, my sister is very creative and she was able to draw out the cake of her dreams for the office personnel to give to the baker/​decorator. The cake ultimately was lovely. But if you’re looking for guidance along the way, I wouldn’t jump into working with the Baking Institute.

The baking institute did our wedding cake and it turned out gorgeous. Before we had a tasting, we submitted our top 3 choices to taste. During the selection process, we met with Igor and were able to taste all three. We then looked through a book to select a style or shape and then talked out any detail we wanted. I knew exactly what I wanted, so Igor created a
sketch and our wedding cake couldn’t have been more perfect!
The sugar flowers constructed were flawless and the flavor of our half and half cake with banana purée filling was top notch. Thank you so much for making our wedding so much more special!