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I first tried Beaverton Bakery’s Almond Roca cake as a teen in the ’70s. Growing up, it was a special-occasion treat, usually purchased by my mom for big birthdays. Beaverton Bakery opened in 1925 and closed in 2018. Pompa Pobi opened Cake It Bakery at Cedar Hills Crossing months later in 2019. An electrical engineer-turned-cake baker, Pobi can make more than 600 kinds of cake, but Beaverton Bakery’s Almond Roca variety was among her most-requested recipes from the start.
“I was new to the area and had no clue about that cake or even Beaverton Bakery,” she says. “It was actually recommended by one of my employees, and we came up with our own version. I have never tasted the Beaverton Bakery version.”
The resemblance between the original and current Almond Roca cakes is uncanny: chocolate cake with chocolate buttercream filling and icing, generously swaddled in a thick blanket of Almond Roca candy crumble. If you really want to impress guests this holiday season, order ahead to get this taste of Old Westside Portland in time for your feast.
Cake It’s Almond Roca cake ($60, 8 inches, two layers) is the tip of the bakery’s iceberg. The website lists 11 cake flavors, 14 possible fillings, and another four icing varieties for 616 different cakes, excluding special custom cakes like the SpongeBob ($70–$90, depending on size), Pikachu ($65–$85), emoji ($70–$90) or Lego ($70–$95), plus grab-and-go cupcakes.
The Almond Roca cake is especially delicious because it is creamy and chocolaty and has that distinctive toffee crunch. With or without a scoop of vanilla ice cream, it is sweet heaven.
Pobi’s baking career began at home in 2015 thanks to the Texas Cottage Food Law, which allows small-scale food service businesses to operate free from unduly burdensome strictures. Plans are underway for a second location in Lake Oswego.
“Today I love what I do,” she says, “and have been doing this passionately for the last 10 years.”
TRY IT: Cake It Bakery, 3205 SW Cedar Hills Blvd., #25, Beaverton, 503-746-5614, cakeit.us. 11 am–4 pm Monday, 11 am–5:30 pm Tuesday, 11 am–5 pm Wednesday, Thursday and Saturday, 11 am–6 pm Friday.
