John’s son Drew Allen points out that customers are more often waiting until the last minute to place their cake orders. “We even offer 24-hour notice on wedding cakes,” he says. “You can come in the day before your wedding, and it will be delivered the next day.”
Another trend that Taylor’s Bakery is witnessing is increased demand for smaller cakes. “We’re doing the same number of cakes, but cakes are getting smaller.”
Taylor’s Bakery recently started offering single-serve birthday cakes with a simple Happy Birthday message. These cakes are available in white or chocolate.
On the more decadent side, their increasingly popular 7-inch ganache cakes feature three layers of rich devil’s food cake, skim iced with chocolate cream icing, and poured over in chocolate ganache.
Taylor’s Bakery is busy developing a growing niche with innovative specialty items like 7-inch triple-layer ganache cakes, single-serve birthday cakes, elephant ear pastries and even popcorn and assorted candies like chocolate-covered pretzels. They make their own popcorn and flavor it with different flavors like blueberry and vanilla – a local favorite because of the huge popularity of the Indianapolis Colts’ pro football team, which dons blue and white uniforms.
“Pharmaceutical reps are a huge part of our business,” Drew Allen says. “They’ll come in and grab a cake or cookie trays and 20 to 30 bags of popcorn at a time. The nice thing about popcorn is that it gives you a lot of flexibility with different colors for all the different seasons.”
