The Batch House

Cris grew up making cakes and brownies for bake sales in Honduras before moving to Georgia for college in 2006. After earning a psychology degree, she and her husband chose Charlotte from a map without having visited. She developed her baking and decorating skills herself, building the business around the pleasure of feeding other people.

The Chilena cake folds cookies and dulce de leche between vanilla layers. The Chucheria cake combines caramel cake and a crumble of peanut butter candies, pretzels, toffee and potato chips. An eight-layer chocolate chip cookie cake replaces sponge entirely, making the catalog useful for someone whose favorite dessert is not a conventional birthday cake.

Whole cakes and dozens are preordered, while a single sweet can be bought directly from the case. The bakery requests two weeks' notice and offers pickup during opening hours. Full celebration orders are moderately priced for their size, and baby cakes reduce both the quantity and the cost when a large centerpiece would be too much.