By Stephanie Burt
Images by Caroline’s Truffles, Erin Adams, and Laura Fritz
Caroline’s Truffles, a cake bakery primarily based in Spartanburg, South Carolina, celebrates its enlargement from mail-order cake enterprise to a spectacular new storefront that welcomes visitors to take a seat and keep awhile.
A new yellow- and white-striped awning greets guests to the cake café at Caroline’s Truffles in Spartanburg, South Carolina. Whereas the primarily mail-order cake enterprise has usually been a bustling hive of exercise on Beaumont Avenue, in 2022, it grew to become a real group hub when it started welcoming guests inside its new retail area, the place visitors can pattern cake and sip wine or espresso.
There are particulars tucked into each nook of the just lately refurbished constructing, from a group of cake stands on the entrance to lighting fixtures specifically designed to resemble whisks, however there’s one element above all that signifies the true nature of this nationally revered cake enterprise: a neon signal exterior CEO Richard Reutter’s workplace that merely reads “Caroline” in cursive yellow neon.
“That’s Caroline’s signature, and we had been in a position to recreate it from her personal handwriting,” says Richard, nearly however not fairly touching the glowing signal as he gestures. Regardless of her bodily absence—founder Caroline Ragsdale Reutter handed away in 2017—her signature touches are nonetheless very a lot part of this enterprise in reminiscence and on a regular basis observe, and Richard, her son, is honoring her legacy with each swirl of caramel icing atop a seven-layer cake. For Richard, mail-order prospects, staff, and visitors to the café are all a part of what he considers the “cake group.”
“You’ll be able to’t actually separate Richard from Caroline’s Truffles, and those that know me know that,” he says. In any case, his mom served her first caramel cake at his christening in 1982, and shortly, buddies and neighbors had been clamoring for that cake, a decadent model of an already-decadent Southern basic with seven tender yellow cake layers separated and lined by a clean, wealthy caramel icing that requires a masterful hand to excellent.
For Caroline, a Lake Metropolis, South Carolina, native, the thought of a private connection to group by means of cake got here naturally. Within the very early days, she’d serve buddies and neighbors by putting a cake on a joggling board on the entrance porch of her dwelling in Annapolis, Maryland, a purple tin beside it for cost. She knew all of the names of her prospects, however because the enterprise blossomed with phrase of mouth, she started to make use of all of the burners on her range for pots of effervescent caramel when it was time to bake, and there have been loads of folks she didn’t know ordering from as distant as Hawaii. So, she started enlisting baking assist from one other baker she knew in South Carolina to assist fill the orders after which ultimately opened a retail storefront in Annapolis that additionally shipped nationwide.
In 2012, the enterprise relocated to Spartanburg and targeted on mail order, that very same signature purple tin packaging not solely holding the unique caramel cake but additionally a rising variety of different confectionary classics, from purple velvet to coconut, though caramel did (and nonetheless does) outsell all of them. Greater than 2,500 desserts per week are shipped out in the course of the busy vacation season today, and thru all of it, private relationships with prospects nonetheless anchor the enterprise as they at all times have.
“Our communication with our prospects is our basis and powerful construction,” Richard says. Whereas many shoppers electronic mail or order on-line, Caroline’s Truffles nonetheless has a cellphone financial institution of customer support specialists so those that want to can name of their orders. There are at all times a number of manning the cellphone year-round, however in the course of the holidays, that quantity swells to fifteen, and so they all have strict directions to keep away from speeding prospects. There aren’t any quotas to fulfill for orders taken or goal size of a name to hit however, as an alternative, an emphasis on private service and feeling taken care of. “We share our story with them, they know us, and we get to take a particular place on their tables, so they’re part of that story, too,” Richard says. And at Caroline’s Truffles, that even consists of including new flavors.
Caroline’s in depth cookbook assortment—many together with her handwritten notations and flags nonetheless included—are housed within the bakery, and Richard usually browses by means of them for inventive inspiration. Nonetheless, “usually, prospects inform us what they’d prefer to see added to the road,” Richard says. “We’ve earned their respect as a result of we do protect these recipes and hold them alive, and so they belief us to bake a cake that tastes just like the one they keep in mind.”
Conserving the integrity of the recipes is commonly a problem for bakeries at a excessive manufacturing stage equivalent to Caroline’s Truffles, however this bakery has not modified the time-tested recipes from dwelling cooks, simply scaled them. The caramel remains to be made by hand, the scent of butter and sugar wafting out of very giant copper pots however nonetheless as clean as when Caroline made it in her dwelling kitchen. There’s a workforce of knowledgeable cake icers, their arms deftly twirling desserts on stands for a superbly clean cake floor with a signature swirl high. And every order remains to be packed by hand, a customized piece of kit making certain that even the cellophane is centered within the tin for every buyer. The walk-in coolers could also be larger, with a bakery that now features a transport room with a conveyor belt for bins which can be loaded straight onto a truck, however the consideration to scrumptious element remains to be a Caroline’s Truffles signature.
Most busy days will discover Richard sooner or later alongside that conveyor belt, performing as a “chef expo” on the road, as he says, double-checking orders, making last changes, and usually holding the thread of their cake group robust from Spartanburg to the broader world. Steps away, prospects enter the café and sometimes exclaim, “Doesn’t it odor good in right here!”
The scent of caramelizing sugar permeates all of the corners of this constructing, which as soon as, way back, housed a printing firm. There are marble café tables anchored by a shiny yellow banquette, darkish inexperienced accents, and, after all, the star of the present, a gleaming case of cake inviting every customer to remain and pattern one thing candy.
“We actually wished to get again to that chance to attach with our prospects face-to-face by inviting them into our bakery with this area,” Richard says. “To say that seeing this come to life on this approach has exceeded my expectations is an understatement. I’m actually excited in regards to the alternatives that that is going to supply us in relation to connecting to our local people, from pop-up brunches to sip-and-shops, and it’s a solution to let people who may not know us in on the Caroline’s secret.”
The key is unquestionably out about this South Carolina bakery, and that’s a candy trigger for celebration, one most undoubtedly commemorated with a cake—or two—on the desk.
We’re excited to announce a scrumptious collaboration between Caroline’s Truffles, our editor-in-chief Brian Hart Hoffman, and Bake from Scratch!
“Y’all know I really like hummingbird cake in any and all kinds, which is why I’m so excited to announce that I’ve partnered with Caroline’s Truffles to create a nut-free 4-Layer Hummingbird Cake, primarily based on my favourite model of hummingbird cake, that’s accessible now for nationwide transport! Caroline’s is a longtime buddy of Bake from Scratch, and I had a blast working with them.” —Brian Hart Hoffman
Go to carolinescakes.com to order your hummingbird cake.
