We had detoured to Stayton for cake. We often detour for cake when driving Interstate 5 between Seattle and Eugene. We make this trip every two to three months because Mom lives in Eugene. My brother, a fellow cake enthusiast, lives in Portland. The husband and I picked him up on the way.
“Are we stopping at Gerry Frank’s?” I asked.
“Well… you ask a good question.” My brother described a cafe he’d seen in Albany while taking the Bolt Bus from Portland on previous trips. “You can’t really get there from the station in any easy kind of way, plus, the stop is way too short. But they have a big ‘dessert’ sign.”
I looked the place up on my phone. The photos showed an impressive cake case. Of course we stopped.
“This cake looks like Gerry Frank’s cake,” I said.
The case was a bit picked over, it was a late in the day, and a Monday. But the lemon poppy seed cake was very good, though the buttercream frosting was a bit heavy. The blueberry cheesecake was good too. “Is your cake from Gerry Frank’s?” my brother asked the barista.
“Lovin Oven. In Stayton,” the barrista said.
“I want to see all the options,” my brother said.
Plus, it was good cake.
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Lovin Oven is tiny, there’s one table tucked in a corner. It was as hot as, well, an oven in there. In back, a whole crew of serious young women, some of them in Mennonite bonnets, assembled towering layer cakes.
“Oh, man, cake mothership,” I said.
“Do you bake for Gerry Frank’s?” my brother asked the woman at the counter.
“They won’t tell you that*,” she answered, smiling. “How did you know? How did you find us?”
“Not everyone has our cake-sleuthing prowess,” I said, and she laughed. “We have eaten a lot of cake between Eugene and Seattle. We know.”
We bought three kinds: chocolate blackout, lemon cream, and champagne raspberry.
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It might be two years ago now since we found Gerry Frank’s. We’d stopped for coffee in Salem on another drive and as we were leaving town, we rolled past a very traditional looking cafe/bakery with “Konditorei” in Germanic script over the door.
“What the what, now?” my brother and I both asked in unison. “We’re stopping THERE next time.” We have since stopped multiple times. The cake is complicated, always very fresh, and has admirable architecture. Altitude. It weighs a ton. Once, the waiter let me heft the peanut butter banana cake, all ten pounds of it.
“You drop it, you buy it,” he said.
I did not drop the cake, but I can confirm both its density and height. It was impressive. While Yelp reviewers complain that the cake is expensive, they fail to mention that a slice may obscure a dinner sized plate and feed four, if they are not cake-eating professionals. We have shuttled Gerry Frank’s cake up and down the I-5 corridor, leaving it in Portland and Eugene, and yesterday, we polished off what was left of a massive slab of lemon cream — though it was from Lovin’ Oven, not Gerry Frank’s.
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In Stayton, where it was way too hot, we ate our cake in the Marketplace, a cute little shopping collective with a used book corner, a resident artist, a couple of other boutique-y/crafty stalls. Harley the Dog led the way and when I apologized that he was heading inside, the woman running the clothing place said, “Oh, no, it’s fine, we’re dog-friendly, come on in,” and showed us around. “You gotta see the pet shop,” she said, and showed us some cute little dog outfits.
“Yeah, this guy needs no more clothes,” the husband said. “You wouldn’t believe his wardrobe.”
“It’s like that. I get it. Never mind. Hang out, it’s fine. Have your cake and eat it too.”
She directed my brother and my husband down the block to the espresso bar.
The coffee was good too.
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- Gerry Frank’s Konditorei: 310 Kearney St SE, Salem, OR 97302
- Sidekicks by Pastega: 832 Lyon St SW, Albany, OR 97321
- The Lovin’ Oven: 274 N 3rd Ave, Stayton, OR 97383
*The Lovin’ Oven is actually mentioned on the Gerry Frank’s website. Heh.