1. Let Them Eat Cake
310 C St.
2. Ciocolat
301 B St.
3. Sugar Daddies
113 E St.
Marie Antoinette supposedly said of her subjects, “Let them eat cake.” Though she spoke of her fellow Frenchmen, Davis residents have apparently taken her words to heart, voting cupcake bakery Let Them Eat Cake Davis’ best dessert.
Opened in 2009 by Paulette Coffman and her daughters, UC Davis students Chelsea and Brittany, the bakery offers a rotating menu of approximately 100 classic and innovative cupcake flavors. Chocolate chip cookies, buttermilk biscuit sandwiches and scones have also been added to the menu, which originally included just 24 different varieties of cupcakes.
In July 2011, Let Them Eat Cake moved from 423 L St. to their current location on C Street, a change Paulette Coffman said has been “great.”
“We still have our regulars from our old location, and now we’re getting more foot traffic,” Coffman said.
Coffman said besides the three daily flavors, the vanilla “Illegally Blonde,” chocolate “Dubliner” and red velvet “Scarlett,” customers’ favorite flavors change with the day of the week. Current offerings include the cornflake-topped “Breakfast of Champions,” “Lolita,” a tropical liqueur cake, and the February flavor-of-the-month “Cupid,” a chocolate-hazelnut cake filled with Nutella.
Coffman said she can get inspiration for new cupcake flavors anywhere, and recently invented the “Ale to the Chief,” an India Pale Ale cake with salted caramel frosting and crushed pretzels, after drinking an unusual beer at Monticello Seasonal Cuisine.
“It had juniper and sage, and I thought, ‘Guys would love this in a cupcake,’” Coffman said. “They go crazy for it.”
Rounding out Davis’ best dessert in second place is Ciocolat, followed by Sugar Daddies, formerly known as Davis Creamery, in third place.
— Erin Migdol
