This place was Awesome from the initial moment of contact to the end result of a Beautiful looking cake and delicious tasting as well. The sweets table was phenomenal! From the mini chocolate eclairs to the tuxedo chocolate covered strawberries. We were introduced to the baking Institute from Lowe's Hotel in Rosemont where I had my wedding in June 2019. I highly recommend the baking Institute to everyone if you enjoy delicious sweets! read more

The baking institute did such a lovely job on our cake decor. The design came out even better than I had envisioned! They really do pay attention to detail with their work. read more

Baking Institute - Our wedding cake :) - Bakeries Near Me - Northbrook, Illinois

Our wedding cake was beautiful and tasted amazing!! Our hotel/reception was able to work with the cake institute on getting the cake there in time and in perfect condition read more

Order at your own risk. I ordered a 5 tier cake mixed with square and round layers for my 50th Birthday Ball. They sketched out the design during my tasting and assured me they could do the design. What was delivered was the wrong color cake the tiers were all round and had six instead of five. I specifically wanted 5 tiers to represent my five decades of being alive. read more

Baking Institute - Cake - Bakeries Near Me - Northbrook, Illinois

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I was nervous when I walked into my cake tasting with a sketch of how my wanted the cake to look. I had two different pictures of wedding cakes with arrows of the tiers I wanted pointing to one cake. It looked so confusing, but the woman I was speaking with helped with communicating it so the bakers knew what I wanted. I wasn't sure if anyone would understand my vision so I was surprised with how my cake turned out. It was perfect and beautiful! Exactly what I had envisioned. We also ordered dozens of pastries such as mini pies, cannolis, cheesecakes and chocolate eclairs. Everything was tasty. Thank you!! read more

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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. read more

This place is awesome. Our cake was beautiful and everyone complimented how great it was. We went with the praline and butter cream with white cake. Soooo good! read more

Baking Institute - Bakeries Near Me - Northbrook, Illinois

I went to a tasting for my wedding cake, and the tasting went well. Except to set up the tasting itself, I made an appointment through their website, which also lets you select the flavors you'd like to try. No one called me for a week, so I decided to call them to set up the appointment. They had my email with the flavor information, but for whatever reason no one had called me. Whatever, I figured they were busy (it was May, so I'm sure they were busy with weddings). The cake at the tasting was good, not great, but nice. It was moist, and the frosting flavors were good. Although the tasting location was in a weird warehouse side-room that was difficult to find near other industrial buildings. Aside from that, the person who helped with the tasting was pleasant, and answered my questions. The quote I received that day seemed a bit high to me and I ultimately went with another bakery that I was more happy with based on both price and taste overall. Fast forward to a week before my wedding, 6 months after my tasting, and I received a voicemail from the Baking Institute, asking me for my final guest count and that I owed them $600 some odd dollars. Umm... I don't think so! I called back immediately and spoke to the woman, whom I told that I never had ordered a cake, and had just gone in for a tasting 6 months prior, and I had not signed anything or put down a deposit, or even SPOKEN to them since the tasting. She apologized, but said, "well since you came in for a tasting, we just assumed you had also ordered the cake." Assumed?? I thought that was just crazy, and I repeated that I did not order a cake and she told me "good luck with your wedding" and that was it. I just think a business that is that unorganized, or whatever the case, is one to be wary of. read more

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. read more

Baking Institute - Half Vanilla and Half Red Velvet. Perfect Combination. - Bakeries Near Me - Northbrook, Illinois

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We visited Baking Institute after reading fabulous reviews on Weddingwire.com. We're not sure if other reviewers wrote their reviews during their post-wedding euphoria or if they were just smoking something beforehand, but this place was awful. Location: 1 Baking Institute is hidden away in an alley in an industrial park. The "main room" for tastings looks like an interrogation room out of a bad spy movie. Their cakes are just as bad as their location. Cake: 1 If you like grainy cake frosting that feels like oily sand when you eat it, bland dry cake that tastes like it came form a box, and enough sugar to put you into a diabetic coma, this is the place for you. Our cake was awful. Most of our guests had the same opinion. Some of our guests literally got sick from eating more than a slice of the cake. We threw away most of the cake at the end of the night because it was so awful and devoured the rest of our sweets table (very tasty, NOT from Baking Institute). We regret ordering from the Baking Institute. Price: 3 Price was reasonable out of vendors in the area, but you get what you pay for. We really wish we paid more and avoided the heartache. Overall: You need to be put into a mental institution if you think the Baking Institute makes good cakes. Reviews were incredibly misleading and didn't match our experience with the vendor. Maybe we received a bad cake, but it was almost inedible. read more

We were so disappointed with how our cake turned out for our wedding in July 2018. Seeing it for the first time there brought tears of sadness to my eyes and my husband was not too thrilled to see that First of all, when my husband and I went and sat down with the lady to talk about our cake and how we would like for it to look, we gave her plenty of photos, ranging from far away to close up of the design of the cake, the details we wanted to see, and how some parts of the cake should be glittery like. Unfortunately, it didn't turn out even a little bit close to the cake we wanted. We paid quite a lot of money for our cake and the least they could have done was make it look similar to it. We are only giving baking institute one star because the flavor of the cake was decent. read more

Baking Institute - Bakeries Near Me - Northbrook, Illinois

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Do not order from this bakery unless you want your order incorrect. I ordered a bridal shower cake for my niece. The order was for a white cake base with lemon filling and lemon zest. Of course when the cake was cut, it was a yellow cake base with no lemon filling. I contacted Igor, the GM immediately to discuss how to resolve this issue. First thing he wanted to do is to: " Ok let me do for you some cake education". All I need to know is that I ordered a white cake and you gave me a yellow cake. He proceeded to tell me what a beautiful job they did on the cake. I ordered a wedding cake from this company in 2016 with no issues, not sure what has happened to this company. I will not be ordering any cakes in the future from the baking institute. Beware!!!! read more

We got our baby shower cake from the Baking Institute after having such a great experience with our wedding cake. They did not disappoint! Again, they perfectly replicated a picture without issue and the carrot cake was heavenly! Moist and delicious. They make it so easy...and the price is always right! Thanks Baking Institute! read more

Baking Institute - Perfect place to get a cake for a baby shower! - Bakeries Near Me - Northbrook, Illinois

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. read more

My fiancé made an appointment with the Baking Institute and today we met with the baker, Igor. It was very simple... he was straight to the point. We only had 3 choices of cake since it's part of our wedding packages, and ended up choosing an almond cake. Igor explained everything about the frosting and the heaviness of each cake & frosting altogether. He also showed us some wedding cake designs that they have in their portfolio. However, it took us awhile to really decide which design we like until he knew what we wanted. He went to his office and whoala....... he printed a pic of a rustic looking wedding cake since our theme would be rustic & vintage. He was easy to work with. No hassle and definitely what we wanted. No BS just real business. Thanks Igor, keep it up. Can't wait for the finish product. Will update this review few months from now. Updated review: 9 months after our wedding. I can't stress enough how awesome our cake was. It was simple but at the same time elegant. I couldn't believed that it was part of our wedding package. Thanks Igor and his team for making our day special. Kudos to your business.... will definitely recommend this place. read more

We got our wedding cake here through our reception venue. We met with Igor during our cake consult and he was very helpful and didn't try to up-sell us. I opted to buy our own brooch online ($3 vs. the $25 at the bakery), which my husband dropped off a few weeks before the wedding. The cake turned out beautifully, exactly how I wanted, and was so tasty! We saved the top tier for our first anniversary, and that tasted great after a year! read more

Baking Institute - Bakeries Near Me - Northbrook, Illinois

We used the Baking Institute because our reception venue uses them. The cake was perfect! We kept it simple since there were charges for fancier fillings and such, but the marble cake with the buttercream frosting was so perfect! Our guests loved it, I loved it, and it looked so pretty! Again, I went with simple things because let's be real, it's a cake that I was going to devour! It was perfect. read more

Baking Institute - Bakeries Near Me - Northbrook, Illinois

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. read more

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! read more

Baking Institute - The wedding cake The Baking institute made for my wedding last weekend! Loved it! - Bakeries Near Me - Northbrook, Illinois

Our wedding cake was absolutely gorgeous! I couldn't be happier! I showed them a photo of what I wanted and they made the cake almost exact. The purple colors and details are just beautiful! Plus everyone is still talking about how delicious the cake was!! read more

Baking Institute - Bakeries Near Me - Northbrook, Illinois

Savory! That's all I can say. I had them bake our wedding cake & I can't tell you how many of our guests came up to me asking where the cake was from & how decadent it is! I ordered traditional chocolate with Bavarian cream filling & traditional strawberry with buttercream filling (eggless). Omar even replicated the flowers from my dress onto the cake which truly personalized the cake for me! It is a bit pricey but totally worth every penny read more

Baking Institute - Bakeries Near Me - Northbrook, Illinois

We ordered our wedding cake from The Baking Institute as they are the bakery vendor of our wedding venue. Our wedding was July 2017. We had communicated with Igor by email in reference to our cake design and brought in a photo of our desired image to our tasting. Igor was very courteous, kind and provided many useful suggestions!! Our fondant cake design consisted of Chicago sports team colors and their logos. The exterior fondant design could have definitely looked sharper and the colors of the exterior could have been vibrant. Instead, colors were matte, dull and most definitely not vibrant. The colors I am referring to as matte and dull are: red, black, light blue/sky blue, medium blue, navy and orange. The lines of the Chicago Cubs design were not polished and not straight and looked as if they were done by freehand. It consisted of marble (vanilla/chocolate) cake, fresh raspberries and a Bavarian cream filling. It was delicious!!! read more

Completely forgot to post on here after our wedding !! Our reception used them as their bakery and I couldn't agree more with that choice !! The cakes and the desserts here are AMAZING !!!! our wedding cake was amazing and they followed my directions and photo prefect !! Honestly it was delicious all.of our gusts took the sweets and cake down !! I highly suggest going with them read more

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

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Our wedding cake was absolutely perfect! It was exactly the way I wanted, looked and tasted fantastic! They are so very highly recommended! Thank you for making our special night even more perfect! read more

The cake is delicious. Our wedding cake was beautiful, and I will definitely be using them for events in the future.

This is our family's go to cake place. In the last 3 years, we have gotten cakes from here for so many parties - graduation, engagement, moms 60th, our wedding, and other family wedding events! Just ordered our baby shower cake! Igor is such a fun guy and I have never had to worry about how the cake will be after placing and order with them :) They make the best EGGLESS cakes and will continue going here for many more years! read more

I had a cake testing 30 days before my wedding and they still somehow pulled it off. We scheduled an appointment with the general manager and picked out our flavors on the website before we got there. Everything was easy going and smooth. It is a little hard to find but as long as you know how to read you will find it. All I took was my wedding invitation and one of my party favors and he combined both ideas into my cake. It looked beautiful! He incorporated my theme as well as was on the money with the color of the cake. My color was red so sometimes if not done correctly, red can be thrown of by shade or brightness. However, the color fit in perfectly with the red in the hall. Not only was it pretty but it tasted so good! I received a lot of great compliments from family and friends on how great the cake was. Great job! read more

Heather and Igor helped organize our wedding cake needs. Our cake looked amazing and tasted so yummy! They also supplied the delicious desserts for our sweet table, which our guests kept complimenting. When we decided to have a brief celebration for our nephew Hudson, who was turning 1 year old on our wedding day, they offered to make a small cake for him with little pictures of baseballs, basketballs and balloons. They did this for free for us and it meant so much to us and the family. They are affordable and produce cakes that look high end. We would recommend them to any bride and groom. read more

We ordered a cake for our wedding and it was delicious!!!! One of the best wedding cakes I have ever had. I Even had it for breakfast! They also decorated it soooo beautifully. It was perfect!!! read more

Easy to work with. Very transparent from the beginning. Plus the wedding cake was gorgeous and we have rave feedback on how delicious the cake was! read more

For my wedding cake tasting, my fiancé and I met with Igor, the general manager. Our reception site used The Baking Institute exclusively, and the cost of the cake was included in my reception package. I showed him two pictures of what I wanted my cake to look like: round tiers with off-white buttercream frosting in a natural-looking, ruffled texture. (The pictures I showed him were by Nine Cakes and were featured in The Knot.) He immediately said the icing was a fondant and would cost an extra $1.50 per person. When I pointed out that the magazine said it was a buttercream, he said the inside must be buttercream, but the outside was fondant. I wasn't convinced the finish was a fondant, so I contacted Nine Cakes directly. They confirmed it was a buttercream icing and said, "It seems really odd to do this in fondant--and even more odd to say it can't be done in buttercream!!! Especially when you showed him two pictures of cakes done like that in buttercream (!!!!!). It's a very easy technique, as well. Not sure why he would try and do that in fondant?" I read some other reviews here on Yelp and saw that Igor has tried telling other couples that their design would need to be in fondant and would cost extra. So, I don't know if he truly doesn't know how to create simple designs in a buttercream, or if he's pulling a scam to get extra money, but either way, I was seriously displeased. He also tried to convince us that we should order sugar flowers (which, surprise, cost extra) and not use fresh flowers because the florist would get "dirty water" on the cake. (I highly doubt a florist wouldn't know what they were doing.) I showed him a picture of a third cake that was similar, and he said it was a buttercream, but added, "I don't like this. It looks unfinished." I was extremely put off that he told us he didn't like the design we selected, because we obviously did or we wouldn't have brought the picture. Igor tried to convince us to go with a smooth, flat texture, because it's "simple and elegant," but I told him a couple times I didn't want elegant or fancy. The whole time, we felt like he was implying, "No, you don't want that. Let me show you what you really want." He had no interest in designing a cake we liked but preferred we choose one from his book of previously-designed cakes (or else pay extra). To top it off, Igor was really quite unfriendly, and even greeted us at the beginning of our meeting by saying, "Well, you know what to do" and pointing to the samples, rather than welcoming us, thanking us for coming, inviting us to look around, etc. I told my reception site about the negative experience we had, and they indicated that they'd had problems with The Baking Institute before and were actually in the process of selecting a new baker. They chose Cocoa Bean Bakery in Geneva, whose cakes taste 10x better and whose staff is 10x friendlier. Plus, they have an actual storefront and aren't in an ugly, hard-to-find warehouse like The Baking Institute. So, if you don't have a problem choosing from a cake he's already designed and paying extra for everything (and having fondant frosting, which I think is gross), then The Baking Institute is fine. But, if you like a design that doesn't fit into Igor's schema of what a wedding cake should look like and what he wants to do, and you don't want to be scammed into paying extra, then I would suggest going elsewhere. EDIT: To follow up, Cocoa Bean Bakery in Geneva was able to pull off what I wanted using buttercream without a problem. And, it was featured in The Knot Chicago. Suck it, Igor. http://www.theknot.com/weddings/photo/textured-vanilla-buttercream-cake-133670 read more

We had an appointment to choose a wedding cake. The cake is included with our venue so we did not choose them. It was hard to get a convenient appointment and when we finally found one that worked, they were rushing us to get out of there. We spent less than 10 minutes in there because they rushed us. Questions obviously frustrated the girl and she didn't want to up-sell us anything even though we were interested in their "luxury" flavors. I will be trying to get this removed from our venue contract so we can get a helpful and friendly baker. I will NEVER allow the venue to prescribe this baker again. read more

I heard good things about the the Baking Institute's quality. I was extremely excited after my tasting appointment as well. Unfortunately, I did not get what I ordered and the bakery became unresponsive when I told them I lived too far to pick up a cake as a make good for a future event. The cake I ordered should have had cherry filling, it did not. Also, the writing on the cake, was less than elegant. The navy cake, without the filling, is what I received. Not only did I use a credit from the venue, but an additional $250 dollars for this less than ideal cake. I would not recommend them to anyone in the future. read more

All I can say is that our wedding cake was stunning, stunning, stunning. I did extensive research on wedding cakes prior to setting up our taste testing at the baking institute and even had pictures printed out to give to the baker so it would turn out exactly as I wanted it. This baker came with our reception choice, so we really didn't have a lot of choice. I emailed the Institute and they advised us to go to their website and pick out different cakes and fillings. You pick out three, and then go to their location to try them. We tried out three and went with white cake with strawberry filling. The cake design i selected was fondant, so there was a $1.50 up charge per person that was not included with our reception, and we had to pay extra for it. Let me tell you, for a cake serving 100 you would be hard pressed to get it for the price we did. When we got to our reception the cake was exactly as we wanted it. Draping fondant icing. the cake was moist and the strawberry flavor was excellent. If you want a really personal experience and need a lot of help with designing your cake, I don't think this would be the place for you. They are very busy and don't really have a lot of time to spend with you. I didn't mind that so much as I knew exactly what I wanted and had a million other things to do wedding planning wise, so to get in and out of there quick made me feel less stressed. I love my cake so much it is the wallpaper on my computer and my iPhone! read more

My husband and I did a kind of multi-theme wedding and we were very specific and particular about exactly what we wanted on our cake. The Baking Institute did awesome! They gave us exactly what we wanted without any additional questions or problems. The day of the tasting when we explained everything they immediately started drawing out a sketch and we knew we would not be disappointed with the outcome. We were still very surprised and happy at how perfectly our cake turned out. It also had the exact flavors we asked for as well! Highly HIGHLY recommend. read more

We picked The Baking Institute in Wheeling to create the wedding cake of my dreams. Not only is Igor and his staff extremely professional and creative, but their wedding cakes possess the most important thing that can sometimes be lacking in the world of wedding cakes - amazing taste!!! The Baking Institute was our first and only stop for taste testing. We went out to Igor's studio and tried a handful of cake samples. His cakes melt in your mouth like butter and the flavor of his fillings cannot be described with words. We went with a 5 layer cake with 3 different combos - yellow cake and raspberry mousse, yellow cake and chocolate mousse, and marble with chocolate buttercream. At the tasting my husband was licking the plates clean, LOL. After speaking with Igor, sending him a few photos of different cakes and of my wedding dress, he created the most beautiful (and delicious) cake for us. It was perfection! Please save yourself any heartache on your wedding day and use Igor and The Baking Institute to create your cake. I will be calling him for any future events where we'll need cakes or pastries. read more

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I just recently got married and ordered my wedding cake from Igor. When we went into the tasting we had a different cake in mind but from Igor's suggestions we decided to go with a cake he had on display. We went over design, style and colors in detail which he wrote down and showered me with promises for the cake. I also emailed him a photo of my wedding dress color and design which he said he would replicate onto the cake detail. We paid in full and in cash the day of the tasting and took home a receipt that said paid. 3 weeks before the wedding we received emails that we had to complete our payment or that they would not make out cake. We tried calling and emailing several times and no one could find a record of us paying or reply to our messages. We had handed the money to igor and he claimed he had forgot to mark it. This was not even the worst of it all, when I receive my cake which I saw on the wedding day, it wasn't even the cake I ordered. Wrong design, wrong color, wrong everything. We have been contacting Igor for 3 months now and he is reluctant to return our calls or do anything about his mistakes. Now that we finally got a hold of him he says that he is the designer and he made changes according to what he thinks looks good. He did not even think to inform us about this but took the money, promised everything, and delivered nothing. He also says he won't compensate not even a penny because he thinks it was a beautiful cake and these are his words. I do not recommend any one to go here especially for your wedding cake. Igor is not only rude and way over priced, he does not even give you the cake you ordered. Please stay away. read more

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. read more

NO WAY My sister's wedding took place this year (2013) and she ordered her cake and brought in her OWN unique cake topper. They included the topper on the original order, I went in to put a veil/bowtie on the topper two weeks before the wedding and the very next day they called for an upcharge on the cake. ?!? Here's the kicker: at the reception the topper was NOT on the cake. They LOST it and WE had to call them initially after the wedding to ask. They said they didn't want to bother the bride or call anyone in any way and probably would not have contacted us if we didn't call two days after the wedding. We called Monday and didn't hear anything at all for the week so I finally just went in Thursday to ask why we hadn't been contacted for almost a whole work week. They apologized and said they "didn't know what to say" -So unprofessional! We are still waiting on a restitution that they promised us and they still have NO IDEA where our cake topper is. It has now been almost a week after the wedding and no one is able to help us or give us any answers. Wish the reception hall did not refer us to this company. read more