Maria Lewis at Nothing Bundt Cake. Below, red velvet cake samples.  (Photos by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
By SUSAN ERICSON
Filling a hole that Shrewsbury didn’t know it had, Nothing Bundt Cakes opened last month in the Staples/Trader Joe’s shopping center on Route 35.
Owners Maria, Carly, and Bill Lewis are betting their franchise, the first to open in New Jersey, can succeed on a concept centered— sorry — on a single style of cake. Bundt cakes ranging in size from the single serve bundtini to a ten inch cake that will serve up to twenty people are available in the display case. (Photo by Susan Ericson. Click to enlarge)
The cake in question — the hole-in-the-middle bundt cake — comes in nine flavors, chocolate-chocolate-chip being most popular, we’re told. It can be decorated in a variety of styles all with cream cheese and butter frosting.
Regular customers of the Nothing Bundt Cake store in the Santa Monica area of California, the Lewis family — Bill and Maria, along with 24-year-old daughter Carly — decided to open one themselves when they returned to their native New Jersey.
“I tasted the product and fell in love with it,” says Maria. “I kept going back to the Santa Monica location.”
Franchisees are provided recipes, but purchase their own eggs and other ingredients, Carly said, and “all of the cakes are made here.”
In addition to cakes that can be bought straight out of the display case, the shop takes special orders for flavors and sizes.
The store also sells giftware, and will cellophane-wrap a cake on any chosen item, such as a platter or a mug.
So how did it taste? PieHole sampled a red velvet bundt that was light and spongy in texture and not overly sweet — the kind that goes down easy enough to bring you back for seconds.
Nothing Bundt Cakes is open Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m., and Saturday to 5 p.m. It is closed on Sunday. Its cakes come in four sizes, priced from $19.75 for a dozen bite-sized bundtini to $43 for a decorated 10-inch cake.Â