Shades of Sugar Bakeshop

Date: 02/04/2023 Time: 3:15 PM 52° RainShades of Sugar Bakeshop was one of the vendors at a cultural event at the Oakland Asian Cultural Center. Eric Szeto is the founder of the business. This event was a blend of two of the oldest culture - African and Asian - which is something I am proud of, and it showed the common ground between the two.Macarons were $3.00 each; $18.00 for 1/2 dozen. The flavors available were toasted watermelon seed, hawthorn berry, ginger pear, kumquat, vanilla bourbon and chocolate passion fruit. The first four mentioned flavors are for the Lunar New Year. Mr. Szeto assisting me was informative when I asked about the hawthorn berry macaron. The mere response from him brought back my childhood memory of the shan jah wafers that I had eaten plenty of as a snack. My parents sold rolls of those wafers in the Chinese grocery store that we had over 65 years ago.Eats: 2 hawthorn berry macarons and 1 ginger pear macaron. The hawthorn berry one was tart and almost had a cranberry taste. The ginger pear one was a nice balance of ginger and pear, and delicious. Between the two macarons, I enjoyed the ginger pear over the hawthorn berry. The flavors were unique.

I discovered Shades of Sugar Bakeshop while perusing an article about Valentine's Day goodies for purchase. Shades of Sugar's offer of their special rose-themed macaron box & free delivery couldn't be beat! I put my order in online. Eric from Shades of Sugar contacted me and let me know they had more orders than expected, and asked if he could substitute some of the macarons for those on their regular menu. I agreed. I've never had a macaron I didn't like, and the price afforded me the ability to surprise my sweetheart with an extra Valentine's Day surprise. The macarons were delicious! The earl grey and the pistachio stood out, but all were lovely. Texture was perfect. They were light and delicate. I would like the flavor punched up just a little bit, but that's me. My sweetheart was delighted!

I've found my perfect tea companion! I've been on a quest to find Macarons to compliment my teas. It was important to me that I find local and POC owned. I accidentally found the Shades of Sugar Bakeshop website and immediately knew I wanted to support them. I placed my order and literally prayed the Macarons would be delicious. Well honestly the Macarons are so flavorful they're addictive. I can't tell whether I like the Vanilla Bourbon, Earl Grey Meyer Lemon or the Mint Watermelon the most so they are tied for first place. I love that they are POC owned and committed to racial justice, check out their website to find out how. The owner was very accommodating with my order. They delivered in a timely manner, using very safe protective/social distance practices. Every step was simple. Even their packaging is nice. Honestly, I'm very satisfied and am already plotting my next order.

Contacted them via email for a delivery to a couple coworkers. Communication was prompt, professional, and helpful. Eric, the founder, helped me pick flavors that would get close to the color/effect I wanted, accommodated the notes I wanted to include, and gave me diligent updates about the delivery of both macaron boxes. My coworkers seemed to love the macarons. Will hopefully be able to stop by soon and try them for myself, but in the meantime grateful for the quality of goods and service they provided in what was a bit of a rushed and particular situation.

I love all the creative and unique flavor options that Shades of Sugar Bakeshop offers! The order process is simple through the website and the owner confirms your order via email with your delivery information. What's amazing is that they deliver throughout the bay too! For someone who is in the South Bay, it's amazing that I'm able to get this delivered from Oakland. The packaging is also cute and thoughtful, and would make this a great local gift option too! I also love that Shades of Sugar collaborates with local partners. They had a tea flavor collaboration and that was amazing since they had matcha and hojicha flavor which I absolutely love! Since the flavors are always changing, I'm always checking their Instagram and website for new flavors! Highly recommend giving this place a try if you haven't!

They deliver! (I think it's the owner who does deliveries... I do a lot of driving myself around the bay so I'm amazed they're doing ok with running all over the place to drop off macarons.) The flavors and their descriptions are so fascinating. The aesthetic is very cute and rustic, and would make awesome gifts for others. The macarons were delicious, the delivery was prompt (I ordered the day before), they were very good with communication, and I'll be keeping an eye out for other flavors I want to try. The flavors they have are great for macaron-size portions, because I'm not that much of a sugar person and there's often multiple components being combined in each one. I recommend trying this place! (psst I have been looking for salted caramel, tiramisu, and crème brûlée flavored macarons in the bay since Chantal Guillon closed recently... this place doesn't have those flavors yet, tho they have coffee-related ones occasionally, but just curious... maybe... in the future...)

These macarons BLEW.MY.MIND! I added a box of six to my Matilda's Bloombox flower order this week, and like WOAH. Best macarons I think I've ever tasted!Is it the delicate texture of the ganache? Is it the vivacious flavor combinations (that include herbs and spices)??It's incredible. Fave flavors, so far, in order:1. Lemon Herbs de Provence2. Jasmine Tea3. Double Chocolate4. Rose Lillet5. Strawberry Peppercorn6. Mint Pea

Bought a pack of 12 macarons for a gift and was excited to see all the different and interesting flavors offered. Ordering on the website and coordinating pick up with Eric was very seamless and love the little details that were added! My friend could not stop gushing on how delicious the macarons were. Highly recommend!

We hired Shades of Sugar to build two macaron towers for our wedding in August, 2022 - an alternative to a wedding cake. We had a wonderful experience working with Eric, and the macaron towers were more beautiful and delicious than anything we could have dreamed of.The range of flavors offered by Shades of Sugar is delightfully wide-ranging and playful. We ended up choosing three flavors: sparkling gold Saffron Champagne, deep blue Earl Grey Meyer Lemon, and hunter green Cardamom Pistachio.If you check out the Shades of Sugar instagram, you'll see that Eric has excellent design sense. He brought this intelligence to the design of the macaron towers, matching the macarons to our wedding's color scheme perfectly, and working with our florist to incorporate our wedding's floral motifs into the towers. Eric was also a great pleasure to work with: very responsive by email and courteous. He drove across the bay to drop off sample macarons, and when the dye of the samples didn't quite match our preference he offered to give us new samples for free.I highly recommend Shades of Sugar for any special event, or just when you need an extra classy and elegant snack.

We worked with Founder Eric from Shades of Sugar to choose the flavors and colors for macarons for our wedding. We wanted something that tasted great, looked amazing, and emphasized local ingredients - and SSB succeeded in all! Our guests loved it. Eric was also a pleasure to work with; one of our most communicative vendors and made it easy for us by delivering the macarons and picking up the towers used to display them. Wholeheartedly recommend!