Boonzaaijer Bakery

When in Kalamazoo another favorite stop is Boonzaaijer Bakery. They made our wedding cake and are as classic as apple pie in Kalamazoo. This Dutch family name is hard to spell but rolls off the tongue when you are in a fix for sweets. The company has been around since the 60s when they moved from the Netherlands.

They sell bakery cookies.

And Dutch treats.

There are always cakes available to buy without pre-ordering. We picked up a small cake for the family. My brother made rib-eyes one night and this cake was the perfect end to such a decadent meal.

My brother can burn. (That's a good thing.)

The best part about this bakery is that they sell cake by the slice!

The eclairs looked amazing but honestly I've never had anything, anything, but the plain vanilla cake with Bavarian Cream filling. It's this simple center that wins the prize for the best food memory of all time. I remember having Boonzaaijers (pronounced boon-zayer) at birthday parties and of course the best was at our wedding. The tradition is to cut the cake and feed each other one bite of cake, right? Well E. and I cut TWO SLICES at our wedding. That's why we are laughing so hard in our "cut the cake" photo. We sent that photo as our Christmas card and said, "Wishing all your days are sweet."

Mom and I went in for the cake tasting for our wedding so E. missed out. This was his first time in the actual bakery. E. got his first bite of Boonzaaijers in Tucson a few years ago! Mrs. Braithwaite carried Shannon and Dan's wedding cake on her lap all the way from Kalamazoo on the plane. I swear I had two pieces at her wedding too!

The staff are sweet too.

Sporks are included.

I love the Dutch tulips on the cake tasting table. Duff needs to go here for his show Sugar High!

The Bavarian cream is heavenly. It's light and not too sweet. The cake isn't too sweet either. The frosting is the sweetest and we had fondant rolled over our wedding cake which was delicious. I'm not even that big of a fan but it was perfection without that overwhelming almond extract taste that most fondant has.

Oh my goodness my mouth is watering. This is way off the detox folks.

We didn't have any cake left to save the top from our wedding cake. Rumor has it that Uncle Frank had THREE pieces. One piece just simply isn't enough. We love you Boonzaaijer's!

Please tell me one of my Kalamazoo readers knows someone, who knows someone, who knows the owners so we can get the word to them that we are huge fans. Thanks!