Love&Flour — Restaurant in Salem

Do not give this bakery your business!! If it was possible to give zero stars I would. I will never purchase another cake from this bakery!! This was the 3rd cake I ordered and by far the worst. The 1st cake was not what I ordered (totally different from picture on their website) but it was edible, despite the fact that the person it was for couldn’t eat it because I was told it was vegan when I ordered, but when I picked it up was told it was not vegan. Second cake seemed ok. I was extremely specific on the design of this cake for my daughter’s baby shower, and even selected a photo from their own gallery. I didn’t ask for anything that they themselves did not advertise. The fondant topper which was the entire theme of the baby shower completely fell apart despite me doing everything she told me to do. I tried to contact Ashley by phone, but no one answers the phone and no one listens to, or clears messages on their machine, so I couldn’t leave a message. I sent an email explaining this situation and still have yet to receive any response from Ashley. Myself and the event coordinator had to do our best to piece this mess together with toothpicks but it was painfully obvious it was in pieces. The event coordinator was appalled at the situation and more so at the complete lack of response from Ashely. There will be no recommendations for love and flour bakery from this venue, that’s for sure! Now for the cake itself—hands down the driest, clumpiest cake with no flavor I have ever eaten. One guest compared it to the consistency of dried out oatmeal. I’m convinced that one if not more ingredients had to have been missed when preparing this cake. I can’t express enough how dissatisfied I am and embarrassed that our guests not only saw the condition of the fondant topper, but not one single guest finished their piece of cake. Thankfully we had the smarts enough to order pastries and cookies from our local bakery to offset this cake mess. In case you’re wondering—all the pastries and cookies were eaten. Most, if not all, of the slices of cake were thrown out. I wish I took pictures of the mess we had to deal with but I was in damage control mode and spent my time contacting and going to our local baker to save us. Kudos go out to Tripoli Bakery for saving the day!!!!

9/10/19 : still no communication from love and flour bakery. She clearly has no regard for her customers. The quality of her product is equal to the customer service—HORRIBLE!! Hands down the worst $250.00 I have ever spent in my life. I’m sure this establishment will be out of business real soon, and rightfully so. If you want the most amazing cakes and/or pastries go to Jacques Pastry Shop in Pembroke NH. You will not be disappointed! Shame on me for opting to use a local bakery....

I ordered the small (5 inch) Funfetti Oreo cake for my son’s birthday. The cake itself was absolutely delicious as was the exterior Oreo fingertip frosting. We all felt that there was too much of the Oreo buttercream. There was 4 thin layers of the cake filled with thick Oreo buttercream between each layer - which was really an overwhelming amount of buttercream. Every person’s plate had loads of Oreo buttercream left on it after picking through to get the cake. I think this would be much better with 2-3 thicker layers of cake so you get a greater cake to buttercream ratio.

Additionally, the high ratio of buttercream to cake make this tiny cake VERY unstable. This cake was 5 inches in diameter and about a foot tall. At least 50% of that height was buttercream so it was a heavy cake as well. The owner said to leave the cake out at room temperature since we were eating it that day. When we transported the cake to our destination a few hours later, the cake had softened up after being out of the fridge. I held the cake securely on the center console of my car with two hands and watched the cake becoming jiggly as we were driving. Unfortunately as we turned into the driveway of our family’s home the cake just couldn’t handle any more movement and it slid into the side of the box. I used to bake cakes myself so I know how to keep them safe in the car… but there was no stopping this cake. The pictures posted are of my very sad $68 dollar cake that broke apart. As soon as I cut into it started to topple over so I had to have someone hold the cake up while I cut it. This would not have happened if the cake had been designed differently or if I had kept it chilled all day.

Overall I don’t want to give a bad review because the cake itself was delicious and the decor was beautiful. Execution could be improved for smaller cakes making them wider and shorter, or thicker cake layers with less frosting. If I order from here again I’ll likely go with cupcakes to avoid the issues I...

My email to Jaime, the owner, after my experience….

Hi Jaime,

Thank you for your prompt email response as a follow up to my phone call with your colleague today – I only wish that your response to my multiple inquiries requesting an invoice for my order was just as prompt. Please use this email as an official record of my order cancellation.

I understand that you pride yourself on communicating with your customers, especially when you go on vacation; however, this was not the case in my personal experience. Love & Flour confirmed my requested cake availability on Wednesday, February 19th. I then confirmed the flavor, pick up time, details less than 48 hours later on Friday, February 21st. I followed up with Love & Flour 5 days later on Wednesday, February 26th via email to confirm the cake– no response. I then called Love & Flour the following day on Thursday, February 27th and was told that the “admin team will get back to me.” I finally called Love & Flour AGAIN today, Monday, March 3rd (12 days after my initial inquiry) to which I was told by your colleague that she does “not have access to admin” and could not provide an invoice/confirmation.

For the record, I was able to inquire about a cake, confirm details, and place an order (with a proper invoice) in a total of 1 hour with another female-owned, small business, cake maker in the area. Unfortunately, when asked by colleagues/peers/friends/family regarding cake makers in New Hampshire, I cannot recommend you and will instead advise that they steer clear due to the lack of communication. I hope that I am not the only (potential) customer that has experienced this; however, when drafting my review, I have actually come across several others with the same complaint. I only wish that I was wise enough to have read Love & Flour’s online reviews prior to my cake inquiry, as this whole situation (emails, calls, etc.) could have been avoided if I just went with my current cake...