About us

How it started

Our company was registered in January 2017, but the story began earlier, and not with a business plan. The first cakes were made for family celebrations, then the neighbours asked, then friends of friends. At some point it became clear that we either stopped or took it seriously – because you cannot make a cake for twelve people on a kitchen table while the family is having dinner.

Taking it seriously meant a workshop, a fridge, a display cabinet, and a place in Dabas, on Szent István út, that people could walk into. In the first year there were two of us. Today there are six.

The name was born then too. Desszert came by itself, and szalon – salon – because we did not want a counter but a place where you can sit down. That difference sounds small, but it shapes everything about how we work.

What “salon” means here

It means we are not only a takeaway confectionery. There are tables and chairs inside, plants, and a flower arch at the entrance which really is covered in live flowers in summer. Somebody once wrote on our chalkboard, “If you enter here, give up your diet!” – it has been there ever since, and it is our guests who quote it, not us.

In practice it means that something happens here on a weekday morning too. We open at a quarter past seven, and not by accident: that is when the people who stop for a coffee on the way to work come in. Then come the grandmothers with grandchildren, around noon the colleagues, in the afternoon the students. We close at six. We are open every day of the week, from eight on Saturdays and Sundays – because most families take the weekend cake home once everyone has gathered.

We do not rush anyone who only came to collect a cake. But we do not chase away anyone who sits down either – that is the point of a salon.

The journey of a custom cake

Most of our work is made to order, and that is a different job from producing a batch. We describe it here, because it prevents a lot of misunderstandings if you can see what happens behind the scenes.

The first conversation

Everything starts with finding out who the cake is for and what for. A digger cake for a three-year-old boy and a chocolate-bar cake for an eighteenth birthday are not the same task, even if both are “a cake”. So we ask: how many people, which flavours the person likes, which they do not, whether there is an allergy, whether there is a theme or a favourite character, and when it is needed.

If you have a picture you saw somewhere, we are glad to look at it. We will not copy it – partly because our technique is different, partly because a copy is never as good as the original idea – but it tells us a lot about the direction you like.

The design

Then we tell you what can be done. This part sometimes disappoints, and we would rather cause that disappointment in advance than at collection. Some decorations simply will not stay upright on cream on a hot summer day. Some colour combinations cannot be reproduced with edible colouring. In those cases we suggest something else that gives the same feeling but also survives the journey home.

Making it

We bake our own sponge and mix our own cream. A more complex cake is several days of work: the sponge is baked and cooled, the cream is set, decoration follows the coating, and marzipan figures need time to firm up. That is why we ask for one to two weeks for a custom cake, two for a tiered one, and months for a wedding cake.

Collection

On the agreed day, chilled, in a cake box. We tell you how long it keeps, how to store it, and when to take it out of the fridge so the cream is not hard when it is cut. Many people do not ask, so we say it anyway.

A note on children’s cakes

A significant share of our orders are children’s cakes, and that is a genre of its own. The question here is not which cream the customer prefers but what the theme is: a digger, a unicorn, a cat, a favourite cartoon, a football team. The child has a picture in their head, and the parent would like to see it on top of the cake.

A few things we always explain. An edible print is the most accurate way to reproduce a specific character – but producing the print takes days, so it cannot be decided at the last minute. A marzipan figure is prettier and three-dimensional, but younger children usually do not eat it, so it is worth asking for something that can be kept as a keepsake. And rainbow sponge is the safest success, because the big moment is not carrying the cake in but cutting the first slice.

What we cannot take on: the official, trademarked depiction of cartoon characters. We can evoke a theme with colours, shapes and mood – but we do not sell a cake that passes on a film studio’s character.

A weekday at the salon

It starts in the workshop before dawn: sponges baking, creams being made, slices waiting to be cut for the display. We open at a quarter past seven, and in the first hour it is almost all coffee – with the occasional choux bun for those who do not want to wait until lunch.

Between nine and eleven the shop is at its quietest, and that is exactly why it is cake decorating time. Anyone coming in then has a good chance of seeing somebody else’s cake being made – it does not happen in a back room here.

Around noon it gets busy again, and in the afternoon the students and families arrive. After five we start counting what is left in the display, because what we baked that day we want to sell that day. We close at six, and after that the preparation for tomorrow remains.

This rhythm explains why we ask you to call after eleven in the morning or from three in the afternoon for longer discussions: that is when somebody can actually sit down with the phone.

Hygiene and food safety

We operate as a registered and inspected food producer. We have a written hygiene procedure, temperature records for the fridges, and traceability for every ingredient we buy. Official inspection is part of how we work, not an extraordinary event.

From a guest’s point of view this means you can ask what is in a pastry and you will get an answer. And we do not describe allergens in general terms: we tell you specifically what is in a given item, and what else is present in the workshop besides that.

The team

There are six of us, and that is just enough for everyone to know what is going on. There is no separate designer and maker: whoever takes an order usually sees it through. The advantage is that you do not have to explain the same thing three times; the disadvantage is that we cannot take an unlimited number of orders. When a week is full, it is full – we would rather say so than rush something.

The same people work behind the counter and in the workshop. If someone serves you in the morning, they may be working on your cake that afternoon.

About the ingredients

We do not use frozen, part-baked cake bases, and we do not buy in finished cakes from other producers. The fruit is seasonal, which means the selection changes: in summer there is raspberry, sour cherry and apricot in the display, in autumn plum and apple, in winter mostly chocolate, chestnut and citrus.

This is not a marketing decision but a practical one: out-of-season fruit is either expensive or tasteless, and both show in the pastry. If someone is looking for a fresh raspberry cake in January, we would rather suggest something else than let them be disappointed.

Artisan ice cream

From spring to autumn we also make ice cream, in small batches. A few flavours are constant – chocolate, vanilla, raspberry – and the rest depend on what is available. Because we make little at a time, a flavour can run out by the afternoon. That is the downside of small batches, and the reason it is fresh.

What we do not take on

It is worth writing this down too, so that nobody travels here for nothing.

• A custom cake for the same day. We can put together a tray from the display, but we cannot produce a designed cake in a few hours.
• A completely allergen-free environment. Egg, gluten, dairy and nuts are all in use in a confectionery. We can make many cakes gluten-free or lactose-free, but we cannot completely rule out cross-contamination, and in the case of a severe allergy we say so in advance.
• Delivery. Cakes are handed over at the salon. A decorated cake is at its most fragile in a car, and we would rather that did not happen.
• Exact copies of trademarked characters. We can evoke a theme with colours and shapes, but we have no right to reproduce official cartoon characters.

Dabas and the area

We are a Dabas confectionery, but a good share of our guests come from the surrounding villages – Sári, Gyón, Ócsa, Inárcs, Újhartyán. That is also why this site has an English version: in summer and around the holidays we are contacted by people who do not read Hungarian.

We prepare separately for local occasions: graduations, the village festival, end-of-year school events. For those it is worth asking even earlier, because many people order at the same time.

What comes next

We do not want to grow into a factory. What we do want: more planned, well-prepared cakes, less rushing, and a display selection that makes it worth sitting down midweek too. If you have an idea of what we should try, tell us at the counter – most of our new items came about that way.