Tarts & Truffles Bakery

Yummy Scrumptious!
SITREP
I can’t complain. The very first time I came here was because I was responsible for bringing a cake to a church potluck and I didn’t have time to make it myself (nor would I in any event because I do NOT trust my cake-​baking skills). But I wanted to make it a BIT special — and not get a generic cake from Raley’s or Safeway (though for the record, both these grocers do a great job on the cakes, good enough for me anyways).
SETUP
I KNEW that whatever I brought would be scrutinized by the «church lady» committee of bitties, so I wanted to make sure the cake didn’t SUCK, ya know?
Tarts & Truffles Bakery makes this great «Gold Rush Carrot Cake» for just $ 30. For me this was the perfect solution. It was well received because there were no other carrot cakes (thank god! Last thing I need are bitties making comparisons — «His was too small!» Gah!)
And it tasted great. I made sure I got a piece of it myself and I will definitely go back for another cake when (and if) I have a dessert responsibility again!
FREQUENT YUM!
Since then, I’ve been back several times for truffles and other baked yummies for myself and friends, most recently just this weekend (which is why this is still fresh and I thought I should finally get cracking on a review!) for a mother’s day cookies assortment for a couple of friends’ moms I was hanging out with this Mother’s Day weekend. Good stuff. Well received.
THE LOWDOWN
Fantastic cakes for Church! Great truffles for me to nibble on! And Awesome cookies for my adopted mommies!

I was ordering a cake for my parents’ 50^th anniversary and wanted a cake that was like a wedding cake, but in a subtle, understated way. I got various quotes, and by far Tarts & Truffles won by price. Since my family frequented them (a lot!) when they were on Arden and Fair Oaks, I knew my parents wanted lemon and raspberry. Sure enough, the cakes were delicious to look at, decorated perfectly (for no extra charge, mind you!), and tasted great. Honestly, the only dings were that the cake started cracking on the sides immediately and the lettering on the cake was BROWN. The cake frosting was white and the top was yellow– who would put brown lettering on a golden anniversary cake, people? I hate to ding for that, but the devil is in the details.

The biggest dilemma we had for the wedding was which route to go for cake. Do we want a traditional looking cake? Or try something different and go the cupcake route… well shoot why not have both, hey why we’re at it, why not throw in some little tart pasteries too! Well that’s what we just did… we had three tiers of cupcakes, an 8″ mini cake on top (which we cut for tradition), and little tarts around the bottom tier. Luckly this place did that all!
So after looking at numerous places, this was the best for the price and quality of cake. I cannot remember the ladies that helped us but they were really nice and helpful on giving us suggestions for the cake. They let us sample their cakes for free too… OH YES! Free cake! And they were pretty good… We ended up going with three different flavors: red velvet, vanilla, and some kind of chocolate. Oh, and they even color matched the frosting our Fall wedding palette too, which I must freakin’ say, when I saw the final product, it came out right on! The only concern I had was that they really slapped on too much frosting! I mean the cake itself was really good but damn, they overdid it. Still, the overall look of the cake when I saw it at the reception looked so nice!
So why the 3 stars? Well I really want to give it 3.5 stars because first off, the frosting was a little overwhelming AND if you are planning to go the cupcake route, this place does not offer any cupcake stands! WHAT?!? Come on now! And I wish it had a better location. This place is inside Sac State’s University Union so you have to basically get lucky and get one of those 30 min visitor parking spots or pay the $ 4.25 or whatever it is now for a parking pass… the heck?

Rude Service! First off, I have had their cakes because my work orders from them and some of them are pretty good, especially the chocolate ones. Unfortunately the customer services is lacking… extremely lacking. When I was ordering the cake, the woman on the phone was extremely rude and sounded like I was bothering her with all my questions. I did end up order the cake from this place because the one I wanted is really good. However, I did have to think twice about it. After I gave my credit card number to reserve the cake, the lady’s voice changed and was very polite and sound very gracious for my order. WTF? That’s not how you retain customers. The other thing is they would not give me the directions to their location over the phone. Since they are located on the campus of CSUS, I didn’t want to have to pay for parking when I went to pick up the cake. Lady said she would email me the directions and where to park. They never did until I called again before the pickup date. Lady on phone was once again rude and demanded my email address and rushed me off the phone by saying she would email it to me «right now». Overall, some yummy cakes, nasty cheesecakes, and really good chocolate cakes… but service sucks rocks so it brings them down, way down. I’ll be ordering elsewhere next time… but I’ll still eat your cakes when my work pays for them. Ha!

What can I say? I am absolutely mortified. I just tried to order a cake from this bakery, because I was looking for a specific type of cake (red velvet) because my kid is having her birthday on Saturday and likes red velvet cake. I usually patronize freeport bakery and they didn’t have that certain cake, so I looked it up on the internet and found this place.
When the girl started to take the order she asked me to spell my last name and had a certain miffed tone to her voice, I ignored it and went on with the order, I didn’t even get to order the cake because she had such a bitch attitude that I ended up saying «you know what, I’ll just call somewhere else».
Who owns this place? Better yet, who hired this person? You could have gained another customer, but instead some other bakery will profit from your loss. STUPID

my mouth waters as i type this, knowing there’s still a piece of rocky road cake chilling in my refrigerator. awaiting my devourment when i finish this review.
i’ve never actually been on the premises of tarts, but i hear that nestled within the kitchens of the SacState student union, there lies magical elves who commence their baking at the crack of dawn, ready to deliver deliciousness to the greater sacramento area and all those who travel from afar to taste their creations.
working closely with the catering department of my hospital, i’ve gotten plenty of exposure to a variety of artisan desserts from tarts and truffles. (as a side-​note confession, my ravenous appetite for their desserts has led me to pounce on any leftovers that come back from catering events) while their prices are slightly steeper than your usual Safeway brand german chocolate, the quality and presentation are exponentially higher.
my favorites include:
fruit basket — containing a filling of custard and fresh fruit (YUM!)
chocolate euphoria — the densest chocolate cake you will ever find
petit fours — they look amazing and i can’t tell you what’s in it but if you need to impress a gf or boss, this is it!
in addition to crafting beautifully delicious cakes and desserts, they also provide free personalization. whether it’s for a birthday, farewell or department celebration, they’ll pipe in any message you desire. maybe for my next purchase i’ll ask them to pipe «happy just-​an-​excuse-​to-​eat-​cake day.»