Grandmothers know best

How SusieCakes built a cake empire

She's My Cherry Pie

May 31, 2025

Cake of the Week: Amy Yip’s Mossy Pink Bat Mitzvah Cake with Oishii berries

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We love you, Sister Pie!

Vanilla layer cakes are forever

Susan Sarich had an idea so simple, it became a smash hit: A bakery with cakes based on her grandmother’s unfussy vintage recipes. And yet when she visited local banks for a loan to start SusieCakes, all the male bankers she met turned her down. “People in California don’t eat sweets,” they said. Hmmmmm.

She proved them very wrong. After opening the first SusieCakes in Brentwood in 2006, with the help of her parents’ retirement funds, she’s since gone on to have a robust online business as well as 30 bakeries across California, Texas, and Tennessee—and counting. Her signature “Susie Blue” frosting color is a very precise number of food coloring drops we cannot disclose here. Secrets are secrets.

Susan shares her story and walks through her bestselling Celebration Cake recipe with host Jessie Sheehan on this week’s episode of She’s My Cherry Pie, and nothing has made us crave a fat slice of cake in the middle of the day more. Get your butter out to room temperature now, if you know what’s good for ya.

CATCH SHE’S MY CHERRY PIE ON APPLE, SPOTIFY, OR YOUTUBE.

Shop the show & more

PSA: You can skip the mixing, baking, and frosting and order her Celebration Cake online
If you love vintage recipes, Jessie’s The Vintage Baker cookbook is a must
A colorful cake stand to match your colorful cakes
Who can resist strawberry earrings?
Wise words
“Generally speaking, you’re sharing a cake.”
–Susan Sarich knows there are exceptions

Tip of the week

Susan changed her grandmother’s recipe to use cake flour rather than AP, which was making her layers too dense. Try a 1:1 swap in your next cake recipe to see the difference.

Rabbit hole to chase

SusieCakes signature color and logo is inspired by her grandmother’s Pyrex mixing bowls, a search that can send you on an Etsy rabbit hole that never ends.