A Spoonful of Sugar

Absolutely loved Kathleen’s «non-​dairy» coconut cream cake! It was beautiful and arrived without any hiccups or delays on the day-​of. I’m not sure what the current trend is (and I thought that cake-​related flowers were the florist’s job), but I was particularly surprised by how the sugar flowers turned out. They looked almost like the real thing!
In the midst of hectic wedding planning and the vendor search process, I found that Kathleen was the most responsive and accommodating among several bakeries that I had contacted. She will definitely be my go-​to baker for future «non-​dairy» cravings for special events.

Kathleen made the cake for my wedding on 9÷5÷15 and it was amazing.
She was willing to work around my hectic work schedule and do a tasting with us at 10am on a Sunday. She wasn’t quite ready when we arrived, so she gave us a delicious donut while we waited! The tasting was of several flavors and quite a lot of cake (she was nice enough to pack up the extra for us to take home). We went with two flavors (chocolate mint chip and lemon marionberry) and a three tier cake with some backup cake as well.
The things we loved about Kathleen were 1) her sugar flower decorations are so beautiful, 2) her chocolate mint chip flavor is amazing, 3) I didn’t have a really clear idea of what I wanted the cake to look like and Kathleen was able to run with the small amount of direction we gave. She also rented us a cake stand that went beautifully in the room and with the cake.

This bakery is in the Mission District. I got really confused when I got to the address because it goes by multiple names. Marla’s Bakery and A Spoonful of Sugar are two of the four names. However, I understand that it only goes by A Spoonful of Sugar now after Marla’s Bakery closed and consolidated to its other location. I went here to try the donuts. My favorite doughnut shop is Doughnut Plant in New York City. In my opinion, there are donuts from Doughnut Plant and donuts from everywhere else. I must admit that the donuts from A Spoonful of Sugar are on par with Doughnut Plant. They are different but taste just as amazing. I recommend the brioche and lemon donuts. I got there a half an hour before it opened at 9 AM. The servers saw me waiting and gave me a free donut to complement the two I ordered. Two was more than enough as I could not eat the third one.
If you are visiting San Francisco and looking for recommendations, please go to

One star is only because I had to, can’t write a review without at least one, I usually don’t write bad reviews, Id like to support a local small business but wow. We met with Kathleen a few months ago for a tasting for our upcoming wedding (sept 5 th) and over the last few weeks I’ve tried to contact her via email and several voice mails, stating that I’d like to firm up details, and I had some questions,. Also let her know I’m getting serious anxiety at the lack of communication and its causing me stress as if I don’t have enough of that already! She’s ignored all calls and emails, and I’ve asked for a REFUND on our $ 300 deposit and I’ve still heard NOTHING, so here I am. I’m also reporting her to the BBB, this is no way to do business! I’m appalled, brides /​grooms here’s your WARNING don’t try and deal with her! Take your business some place else!!!

Disclaimer: I am reviewing purely based on customer service and NOT on the actual product.
I contacted Kathleen a few weeks ago asking for an order of cupcakes for an event of mine. She responded saying she was interested initially, and then I never heard from her again despite multiple follow-​up emails about it. I am sure as a bakery they are probably delicious, but unfortunately they seem to have no idea how to handle catering or larger orders. If you have a wedding or another event, I would go with a company who would be more communicative than A Spoonful of Sugar.

Amazing cookies and brioche donuts! I’m so happy I found this place. It’s scary close to my job. Mmmmmm. With prices being super fair and all baked goods being amazingly fresh… I’ll be here pretty often. Thanks for the great experience. I will refer clients here frequently for a quaint sugar rush. –r

Kathleen’s cakes taste amazing! She did my wedding cake this past July 11^th and all my guests loved it. I wanted banana flavor and had searched around the bay area for a wedding cake baker who made banana. Found a few but Kathleen’s banana cake blew them out the water. Delicious! It was a no brainer. And she is such a nice person!

Kathleen made the cakes for our wedding in April — everything was so easy from the tasting to the ordering. I asked for a deconstructed tiered wedding cake look with different frosting textures– cakes were exactly as hoped for! Very inventive flavors — the mint chip cake was so popular at our wedding, but my favorite was the nectarine thyme. Great job Kathleen!

Yes, it’s true, that bacon brittle brioche donut is the best i’ve ever had. Here’s why, it’s the crumb. The donut collapses under the pressure of your teeth like the finest of sponge cakes. The glaze is then compressed and extruded into the paste in your mouth adding a juiciness. The bacon brittle brings the texture and salt to the mix. Spend $ 3 and run your own science experiment, you’ll see.
The maple sugar donut is much simpler but equally fine. Same donut with a flurry of mapley sugar evenly dusting all surfaces. We are talking refined, in both the baking and the application techniques.
Sorry dynamo, you have been dethroned. These donuts are on the tartine level if tartine made donuts, which they don’t.
Can’t wait to try the lemon curd donut, and whatever concoctions Kathleen cooks up. Once you put these in your mouth, nothing else will suffice. Fair warning.

So apparently Kathleen/​A Spoonful of Sugar is the one responsible for the seriously amazing brioche doughnuts happening at Marla.
These doughnuts are outstanding, the yeasted dough actually outshining the doughnut toppings, in my opinion. Very fine texture — cake flour? — with small air pockets from the rising yeast, forming a soft, slightly spongy, springy, deliciously almost-​bready base. Which makes sense, because: brioche. The maple sugar was a soft, crystalline mouth massage; the bacon brittle a deliciously salty decadence. I’m normally an old fashioned doughnut sort of lady, but damn if I haven’t been converted by these fluffy heaven pillows.

I can’t speak to their catering business but they have the best donuts in the entire city — I know, big words! But I stand by them. You can get the brioche donuts (why hasn’t anyone thought of that before?) at the Marla Bakery on York St b/​t 18^th and 19^th St. The bacon brittle donut is pure heaven. And it’s gigantic. Much bigger than a normal donut. I’ll never go back to Dynamo again.
More details on their awesomeness at my Marla Bakery review —

I will eat anything Kathleen bakes.
I’ve tried her cake, cupcakes and donuts, and she has spoiled me for anyone else — A Spoonful of Sugar is what I now compare all other cupcakes against (I mean, come on, whenever I see a food truck or booth selling cupcakes, I cannot resist their siren song). My husband and I may find someone else’s treats to be tasty, but it’s never as good as what Kathleen creates.
In particular, we love the Brioche Donuts (swoon) and anything with her Lemon Curd. Seriously, can I just buy the Lemon Curd from her direct? And inject it directly into my mouth?
I love the flavors the Kathleen combines, and am always hopeful to try a new combination. This woman can also rock vegan treats. Seriously — moist and tasty vegan cake. As a vegetarian, I haven’t tried anything with her candied bacon, and I am pretty sure I am missing out big time.
You can find her at Bay Area Derby Girls bouts. Because derby and cupcakes? Everyone wins.
She’s been in the business for awhile — she knows the Bay Area wedding and events scene. Kathleen is very responsive and helpful. And wonderful. I want to give her all the stars. Please support this wonderful woman-​owned Bay Area business so that she never stops baking.

Guess what?! Bacon. I finally figured out who makes these delectable things. Good luck tracking one down but if you do happen to find one out in the wild, be sure to get it. It’s great with coffee. Doesn’t matter what time of day it is because the bacon brittle brioche donut is good anytime.
Notes for eating is as follows:
1) Do not share. Tell others to get their own. There aint enough bacon for two.
*This is where you instagram, facebook, and tweet about it*
2) Place something underneath donut AT ALL TIMES to catch those sneaky runaway bacon bits. (They think they’re sooo smart…)
3) Voraciously consume donut, lick your fingers, then go for the bits that have escaped. Try not to let your sighs of pleasure get too loud.
4) Repeat if you’re ready.
You have now mastered the art of Bacon Brittle Brioche Donut eating. Join me.

I’ve already told Kathleen I’m hiring her as my personal baker (is that a thing?). First, her tastings are very professional and delicious, but the problem is that they don’t help you decide what you want because then you just want everything. She made our wedding cakes for our October 2013 wedding. They were gorgeous (will post photos when I get them), delicious, and just what we wanted. My husband and I wanted cakes that reflected the rich traditions of fruit trees in our families, and she delivered perfectly.
Then, last minute, we also asked her to make 2 dozen mini cupcakes for the next day, and now she’s making a vegan cake for my sister’s birthday! Personal baker, indeed.

This girl, I tell you. She made cupcakes for my boyfriend’s birthday and was so gracious to have done them only given a day’s notice in advance.
The cupcakes were oh so delish! Will definitely get celebratory cupcakes from here always!

Okay, who doesn’t love cupcakes, and super yummy cupcakes at that! Although I was on a diet at the time I tasted the cupcakes, I soon decided it would be a cheat day for me. They were absolutely delicious and amazeballs!
I ended up having 3. One of each flavor, I don’t remember exactly what flavor they were, but one was vanilla. (strongly recommend)
Will definitely order some more in the future for parties/​events/​bdays.

I purchased a voucher through Gilt City since I thought brioche donuts was a novel idea, and I can’t turn down anything maple bacon, especially not cupcakes! It was a plus I could sample everything half off, and I was able to place my order with Kathleen easily. She responded to my emails right away, and I was able to set up a pick up time with her for a Saturday at her kitchen in the SOMA. I ordered:
–Lemon Coconut Cupcake (Vanilla Cake Filled w/​Lemon Curd, Topped w/​Coconut, $ 20/​Half Dozen,
): Good, but not amazing. The cake wasn’t as fluffy as I was expecting, but I liked the lightness of the frosting, and that it wasn’t tooth-​achingly sweet.
–Maple Bacon Cupcake (Vanilla w/​Maple Sugar Buttercream and Candied Bacon, $ 20/​Half Dozen,
): The candied bacon was amazing, but the cupcake itself was just ok. Again, the cake was a little too dense, but the frosting was good. However, I didn’t taste any maple flavor. I would order the candied bacon on it’s own if that was an option, but I don’t think I would get the cupcake again.
–Glazed Brioche Doughnut (Brioche Dough Fried, Topped w/​Glaze, $ 3,
): I love brioche and I love doughnuts, so was super excited to give a brioche donut a try. However, I was really disappointed! The doughnut was super greasy, and there was barely any glaze on it to cut the grease taste. Skip.
–Chocolate Covered Brioche Doughnut (Brioche Dough Fried, Topped w/​Chocolate Glaze, $ 3,
): The chocolate gave the doughnut a little more flavor, but it was still super greasy and heavy tasting. Skip.
I realized afterwards that I actually ordered the vanilla and chocolate brioche donuts, so was bummed that I got the glazed instead of the vanilla. Oh, well. Overall, I think I had too high of expectations, but perhaps it was an off-​day for Kathleen since I know she was busy with a wedding that week. I will have to place another cupcake order in the future for more of that candied bacon!

Kathleen is amazing and I am so happy she was the one to make our wedding cake! I met her through a bridal fair and after taste testing a few other popular wedding cake bakers, it was a no brainer that Kathleen’s cakes were the winners!
She offers a variety of flavors from staple favs like red velvet to more unique flavors like banana caramel (my all time favorite!), strawberry rhubarb, blackberry lemon, and even flourless/​vegan options. Compared to other places, her cakes are moist and the flavors are rich and complex. Its really the best cakes I’ve ever had and I am a big dessert type of gal!
For our taste testing, she gave us generous amounts of all different flavors and offered us coffee and milk. When it came to decide on flavors later on, we couldn’t decide bc they were all so good! She happily offered us a second testing which we couldn’t pass up! We got a 3 tier cake that came with 3 different flavors. As for the design, I showed her a pic of a cake I liked online and she recreated it beautifully. Even the fondant tasted yummy! We liked her so much, she also made our favors which were big chocolate chip cookies sprinkled with sea salt. Our guests said it was the best choco chip cookie they have ever had! She even individually wrapped them and added our personalized stickers on them for us.
Bottom line: You have to taste her cakes!!! Highly recommended!!!

Kathleen is absolutely AMAZING! Her cakes are so moist, fluffy and unique. We tried 2 other well known bakeries in the bay area and we thought her red velvet and chocolate cakes were soooo much better. I don’t say this lightly. Our guests were raving about our chocolate cake for a long time. I wish I can have a bite of her cake everyday!
I first met her at a bridal convention and tasted her red velvet cake. OMG so good! So we scheduled a tasting with her. We tasted about 5 different cakes and chose 3, red velvet, chocolate/​chocolate, and carrot nut cake. We had a light pink cake with lace trim and pink peonies. It turned out so beautiful;) She delivered right on time to Hakone Gardens, Saratoga.

Kathleen made our wedding cake. I visited several shops with friends and family before this, and nearly selected one of them before a comedy of errors resulted in me ditching them and going in search of Option 4. Kathleen is down-​to-​earth and makes good cake. Sold!
My main criterion on this thing was that it *taste good.* We received numerous compliments on the cake (both looks and taste) and we all went back for another slice for dessert the day after the wedding. See? Not cardboard!
We requested two flavors — chocolate with chocolate buttercream, lemon with lemon marionberry filling — and they turned out very nicely.
Also, when we started getting RSVPs back, we found out we had a guest with gluten intolerance, someone with a severe dairy allergy, and a couple of vegans, and Kathleen was able to throw in cupcakes to meet those needs as well. Way less fuss than me having to find someone to go to Sprinkles on the morning of the wedding and buy things to meet their needs.
Oh, one more bonus: No «$ 25 deposit for cake plate» blah blah fussiness that a lot of other shops do. She comes in and sets up the cake and you are done.
Find the shop on Facebook to see pics of her cakes. Good stuff.