Essence Cakery

I want to write a review because I am so disappointed that they have closed up shop. Essence Cakery was a blessing for me when I was looking for someone to bake a gluten free wedding cake. Not only did they do beautiful job on that cake, a year later they made a miniature replica my mom ordered for my husband and I first anniversary. I was a dedicated customer from then on. They made great gluten free cupcakes my favorite were the strawberry and Mexican chocolate. Their cakes were beautiful, especially the model cakes on display Alice in Wonderland and the ocean coral cakes. I’m so sad they are closed.

It’s the year 2012 and my then-​fiancé-​now-​husband are going to Garden Ridge to buy wedding decorations. I spied this super cute bakery with gorgeous cakes in the window! They were handing out samples of the banana cupcakes, and when I tell you that was the best tasting cake I may have ever had, it’s no lie! Hubs doesn’t even like sweets but he said, «that’s good cake!» Staff are so friendly, and the CAKES ARE OUT OF THIS WORLD!!! Champagne cupcakes, Mexican chocolate cupcakes, the list goes on and on… Essence Cakery did our wedding and everyone loved every morsel!

I bought 2 dozen cupcakes today for $ 79. Service was disappointing and there was nothing special about the cupcakes. I will not order from them again.

I ordered 3 cakes, on various special occasions, and every time my family is disappointed to hear I spent 10 times as much on an extra dry cake then they would spend on a moist cake from the supermarket.
I really wanted Essence Cakery to come through, they do a good job decorating, but their cakes are so dry and there is barely any frosting on them. You also have to order weeks in advance.
Do not be fooled by the cupcakes, making a cake is not the same thing as a cupcake.
Do yourself a favor and get a cake from Central Market, they are soooo moist and delicious, with scrumptious, generous frosting.
Just so you have an idea, I paid around $ 80 each time for a cake for 8 people.
Never again…

Haven’t been here in about a year & stopped in today. No cupcakes were on display. The trash can was full, the floor was dirty and they were out of cupcake boxes and amaretto filling. The young lady working said they had been busy. A few people wandered in and back out while we were waiting on our cupcakes & the lady working was in the back making ours. Quite disappointing today. Will try again soon & hope it was just an off day.

Awesome as always!!! Perfect mid afternoon treat for myself or a special someone. Highly recommend the Mexican Mocha cupcake.

I had trouble finding this place because I had no idea it was inside of an antique mall. I had the champagne cupcake and it was pretty good. Tasted fresh, soft, but a bit too sweet for me.

I was out in the area and read the reviews, so I decided to try them out. I got 2 champagne, strawberry jubilee and a German chocolate. I mainly ate the champagne, shared the others, and they were pretty good. The lady at register even offered to give me some fresh ones that had just been baked, so I thought that was very nice.

My mom and I are both 100% Gluten free, so this place is a blessing! We’ve tried all of their gluten free cupcakes and it’s hard to decide which one I like best because they’re all so good!

This is a great place! Beautifully decorated cakes, and great gluten free cupcakes! What I really love is that excellent gluten free and vegan cupcakes are available every day — not many places in this area like that! Love the flavors too! Definitely worth a visit!

My fiancé drags me here for cupcakes. They have good choices, good tastes, good customer service, and the place is clean. If you go, you will like it.

Am Gluten Free and they have several flavors of cupcakes and I have not been disappointed with any of them — they are my current vice. Thinking about getting a cake made here for my birthday… If your off of Gluten this is your place — the regular ones look yummy as well. Every weekend these are my special treates.

They have gluten free cupcakes. And they’re good. Highly recommend this place.

I tried Essence Cakery a few years ago and remember it didn’t thrill me. Since I was in the area, I had to stop by to fulfill my sweet tooth and prayed it would thrill me this time around. I ordered a vanilla cupcake and a chocolate chip cookie. The $ 3 cupcake was just okay and nothing spectacular. The cupcake was a little on the small side compared to other popular places. Now that chocolate chip cookie was to die for! However, I won’t go out of my way to return.

Tried the cupcakes here as well as a cake my friend ordered for a friend’s birthday. I loved the funfetti birthday cake! The vanilla cupcakes are great too with delicious frosting. For me the key to doing cupcakes right is the frosting and they got it right. Also the cake was super moist and tasty!

Like Lisa S, I unknowingly walked into this strip mall to look at discounted luggage and stumbled upon this cute little cake shop. I noticed they had signs advertising their cupcake of the month — unfortunately they were closed that day (Monday) so I came back to try their cupcakes.
I tried their Mexican Mocha cupcakes and my friend tried the Grasshopper cupcake of the month. Each cupcake on display was simple yet elegant. Mine came topped with a shimmery chocolate coin — it was delicious. So was the rest of my cupcake — the cake itself was moist and the frosting had strong cinnamon notes. When I got to the filling, I got the mocha flavor and the trio of chocolate, cinnamon, and mocha was divine. If it were up to me, I’d have more of the filling and less of the frosting so I could enjoy the medley of flavors more. My friend enjoyed her minty Grasshopper cupcake as well. These cupcakes are very sweet, so we ate half and took the rest home to enjoy later. I’d very much like to try some of their other flavors (German chocolate, chocolate raspberry, etc.) in the future.
P. S. Their custom cakes look amazing and probably taste as good too — in case you’re looking for a great place that makes unique cakes.

Found this place via Unilocal and realized it was within walking distance of my brothers house. He randomly decided to go to Garden Ridge so I used the opportunity to try this place out. The location in a abandoned mall is random and I’m pretty sure this has to hurts business, but the cupcakes are pretty good. They had around 8 flavors to choose from, nothing too exciting so I went with the Mexican chocolate. I liked the minimal icing, just enough to complement the cake, but not overpower it. The cake part of was super moist and you could taste the hint of spice from the chile that in normally found in Mexican chocolates. These cupcakes are on the smaller side, but who really needs a big cupcake? At $ 3.25 (that’s including tax), I don’t consider these expensive.
Another random, delicious find thanks to Unilocal

I can’t believe all these people love the cupcakes from this place. No offense Essence but I was just not happy by my purchase.
First, and this was a huge turn off… the freakin’ price! This is the most expensive of all the cupcakeries I have been to. $ 3.25. Yes, just a quarter more then most place but you would expect that by paying that type of money for a cupcake that it would be large and delicious and these were anything but. I do have to say that they were extremely nice and helpful but the actual «food» is why I gave it 1 star.
It’s Valentines day and my husband wanted to take me to a place to get some cupcakes. We found this place and it was less the ¼ mile from where we had just had our lunch. So we decided to give it a try. My husband and I got the champagne cupcake and the red velvet. I’ll first comment on the red velvet. It wasn’t terrible but it was by no means great. It tasted like box cake. Icing was good but not great. Now the champagne one… =(Sooooooo nasty. I personally loathe Twinkies and that’s exactly what it taste like. The cake is similar in texture the cream on the inside is that same whipped up cream filling and the icing… I’m not even sure what it tasted like. I can’t remember because the rest of it was so horrifyingly nasty. I think they made it without the use of actual champagne but instead used champagne flavoring and not a good one to boot.
Maybe the chocolate ones are better. I don’t know, but I sure won’t be back to find out!

What a shock. We had gone to Garden Ridge to pick up some Christmas ornaments and being tired and thirsty we wandered in here rather randomly. What a treat. The cup cakes are phenomenal. I know that Rebecca down below only gave them 3 stars because of price but these aren’t the $ 1 cupcakes from Wal-​Mart and that shows in the flavor, texture and attention to detail that is applied to all of the flavors they offer. My fiancée had the carrot cake which was good enough that I was jealous, even though I had the German Chocolate which is one of my favorites.
We liked the cupcakes so much that we ordered our wedding cake from them. It was really lovely. They worked with the fondant to recreate part of my dress on the cake and despite the fact that we dropped and broke the topper I had ordered at the last minute, they were very accommodating about assisting with a replacement. While the cupcakes aren’t super-​cheap, they are very reasonable for their custom cakes particularly given the quality and the fantastic taste.

I have to reiterate what the first reviewer, Shannon, said that when we bought the living social (or groupon, one of those) coupon for this place because my husband has a type of love affair with cupcakes and pastries, we were not too excited when we pulled up to the big Garden Ridge building on the border of Allen/​Plano. I didn’t know what to expect but BOY were we surprised.
They make their own icing and have all their own recipes for their cupcakes and it is some seriously amazing stuff. I’m not a sweets fan but hubby described their icing as «light and creamy and obviously homemade» which is a big compliment from him, the connoisseur of pastries that he is.
I snuck a bite of their red velvet (sinfully delicious) and their strawberry whcih was moist and incredibly flavorful. Several of them have these really lush fillings in them which are just amazing. I highly recommend them, and don’t get turned off by the location! With whatever they’re saving on rent, they’re putting it all into their amazing food!