Listen up, cake buffs: Sugar Blossom Bake Shop, San Clemente’s artisan bake shop, has officially moved to a new location, just two blocks from its original space. This move marks a new chapter for the bakery, offering a larger space with an array of new menu items.
When Tracy Rogers took the helm of Sugar Blossom Bake Shop in 2020, just before the pandemic unfolded, she could hardly have predicted the journey ahead. Now, with the eatery settled into a new space, Rogers shared her excitement about what this move means for the business.
“The owner of the previous building wanted to move into a different direction,” she explained, “But it turned out to be a good thing because this location is all around better. We’re no longer tucked into a corner.”
Originally opened in 2010 by Lei Shishak, a cookbook author who honed her skills as Michael Mina’s pastry chef at the Stonehill Tavern at the former St. Regis Monarch Beach in Dana Point, the shop was purchased by Rogers, an entrepreneur at heart, in 2020. “I was working as a cake decorator at another bakery, but I was always looking for ways to create my own business, my own schedule and my own ideas,” she said.
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Before delving into the culinary world, Rogers enjoyed a career as a dancer, including a stint at Disneyland. After hanging up her dance shoes, she continued to explore her artistic side as a sculptor and jewelry maker. These hands-on crafts soon piqued her interest in something sweeter. “I got into baking primarily because I was a sculptor,” she recalled. “I was sculpting a lot of polymer clay and doing a lot of 3D sculptures, which intrigued my interest to work with fondant and cake decorating.”
She also credits her family in Paradise, California, for instilling her with a love of baking at a young age. “I used to bake with my mom and my grandma and my aunts all the time,” said Rogers. “They would bake pies, and we’d have huge baking days at grandma’s house. My mom taught me everything about baking cookies and cakes.”
Primarily using recipes from Shishak, Rogers put her own spin on the Sugar Blossom’s array of signature cakes, which feature light sponges and American-style buttercreams. But her new location has given her the chance to add more to the bakery’s menu.
Moving into the former Jimmy John’s sandwich shop, the new Sugar Blossom is a significant upgrade. It boasts more seating and offers customers a bird’s-eye view of cakes being assembled and decorated. For anyone who loves binge watching cake-making videos, this is the ideal spot to see it happen IRL.
Fans of Sugar Blossom will be thrilled to know that all of their favorite artfully designed cakes remain on the menu. You can enjoy the popular raspberry coconut cake, a zippy creation filled with cream cheese and raspberry preserves, then adorned with shredded coconut and fresh raspberries. Also available are the red velvet cake with whipped sweetened cream cheese and vanilla buttercream, a decadent salted caramel carrot cake, and the charming, maximalist pink vintage heart cake.
I would be remiss not pointing out their mini cakes and the show-stopping, four-layer lemon cake featuring bright lemon curd and raspberry preserves, highlighted with an intricate fern and floral design. And for those special matrimonial occasions, customizable wedding cakes continue to be a very popular offering at Sugar Blossom.
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Housemade banana pudding, buttermilk cinnamon rolls, cookies and more are also still here, along with some savory new additions. “We added quite a few new menu items for the new location,” she shared, “We’ve added avocado toasts, open-face tuna sandwiches and egg salad sandwiches.” Just-baked sourdough and multigrain loaves, croissants, scones and quiches can also be purchased, as well as a raft of pastries, cupcakes, brownies and more. And the jam list (“reminiscent of my childhood in Paradise where we spent hours picking berries from my grandparents’ yard,” she recalled), with such offerings as blackberry, gooseberry and peach habanero, merits your immediate attention.
While the new Sugar Blossom had had to nix its espresso menu (“In the old space, we had a huge espresso following, but one of the agreements to move into this space was to not offer espresso because we didn’t want to be in competition with Sur Coffee” located in the same building, she explained), it now offers a full whole loose-leaf tea menu with more than two dozen teas. In addition to freshly steeped teas, the bakery makes tea lattes and boba drinks.
A recent visit to Sugar Blossom, now in its soft-opening stage as it gets its sea legs, showed a bakery that has, well, blossomed seamlessly into its new iteration. A streamlined yet still welcoming environment minus any frippery found at more cloyingly designed bakeries, with a handful of seating ideal for quiet conversations. Barstool seating at the front window offers a view of the sidewalk for those who enjoy people watching. Taylor Swift’s “Enchanted” gently piping through the sound system offered the perfect score for the day. (As Swifties can attest, the “Long Live” singer is also a baking afficionado.) It’s a calming respite from the more boisterous nearby Avenida Del Mar and nearby watering holes.
Beyond the baked goods, the true highlight here was getting to watch Rogers and her team bring their cakes to life; beach scrapers expertly smooth icing to a flawless finish, simple syrup get showered over bare cakes for maximum tenderness and piping bags add those intricate final touches.
Rogers leads a team of 10, including Hero Montero, who received his training in Hawaii, as well as her two sons. “Justin makes all of our cookie dough, buttercreams and cake fillings, while Aidan keeps the space clean and tidy,” she said.
With neighbors like Gema, noted as one of Orange County’s best restaurants, and Sur Coffee Roasters, where you can find single-origin roasts, Sugar Blossom has planted new roots in one of San Clemente’s most fertile gastronomic blocks.
Sugar Blossom Bake Shop will have its official grand opening on Saturday, June 21 from noon until 8 p.m. Regular hours are Tuesday through Thursday 10 a.m. until 5 p.m., Friday and Saturday 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. and Sunday from 10 a.m. until 4 p.m.
Find it: 122 S El Camino Real, San Clemente, 949-767-3889, sugarblossombakeshop.com