When Lynn Magnoli, the original owner of Los Gatos’ iconic Icing on the Cake, announced she was putting the bakery and its recipes up for sale earlier this year, customers worried about its future.
But when Magnoli announced that it would be taken over by a former employee, Maggie Raye, they rejoiced.
Raye, a home baker, comes to the storefront at 50 West Main Street — which has been a fixture in town since it first opened in 1985 — from a nontraditional path to the industry, with a resume that touts a bachelor’s degree in recording arts and credits on a Josh Groban album.
The Bay Area News Group sat down with Raye to discuss her journey to the bakery and her plans for the future. This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
Q: How did you get into baking?
A: I’ve always grown up in a very dessert-heavy, bread-heavy family. It was always kind of our traditions, holidays especially. Every birthday, my mother would make us our family’s traditional sunshine cake — which is basically a take on an angel food cake, but it has egg yolks in it and it’s a little more spongy. So I learned how to make that at an early age. I’ve just always known that baking makes people happy. I really don’t know many people who are unhappy while they’re eating desserts.
Q: What were you doing before you got to the Bay Area?
A: Before I came to Los Gatos, I was actually working for a record producer in Los Angeles, in a general assistant position, but I did end up having production credits on a couple of albums. So with my recording arts degree, I got an internship with him, and then he ended up offering a position that I was being paid for. But the thing about the music industry is it’s very hard to balance your work life. Having children was always part of my plan, and I knew that that was not going to be the priority if I stayed in the music business.
Q: What brought you to Icing on the Cake in 2009?
A: When I changed career goals, I was just looking for something that was enjoyable. Since I grew up in Las Vegas, I knew about Nothing Bundt Cakes and how they started there and quickly developed into a franchise. A part of me was fooling around with the idea of purchasing a franchise of some sort, but I knew I wanted to have the work experience first. So when I moved in 2009, I turned in applications to the entire Bay Area bakery scene. I walked into Icing on the Cake, and I just really felt comfortable. I really felt that this was a magical place that really had so much to offer this community, and I was really grateful to be a part of that for five years. I decided to stop working to raise my children, but for five years I was here 40 hours a week. A lot of the people are still here from when I worked here, there’s like 14 or 15 people that I knew from before.
Q: What was it that brought you to come back to the bakery as an owner?
A: [It’s always been] in the back of my mind, the idea of owning a business, owning a bakery. Even when I worked here I joked around with some of my friends that worked here – like, “oh, well, if Lynn ever wants to sell.” I never put it out there to her specifically until I heard about the listing through social media. It’s one of those things where I decided that I needed change for myself. Being a mom is very fulfilling and rewarding, but I always knew that there was something else I wanted to do. I think it’s a very good lesson to teach your children as well, that things can change. My own mom changed drastically in her 40s, in her career. So I felt like it was a good way to be a positive [influence] to my girls and be like “you can do hard things, you can make these old dreams happen.’ I didn’t give up.
Q: I know this place is so important to the community. What have you been hearing from customers ever since you took over?
A: I think overwhelmingly, it’s been a positive. They’re very grateful that it’s still going, grateful that the recipes are continuing. I just talked to somebody last weekend about how when it first opened on Santa Cruz Avenue, they heard from their mom, “oh, you need to try this bakery, It’s great.” And we’ve been getting it over and over and over again. It really makes your heart happy to be a part of those traditions. I’m not going to say it’s been 100% positive. There are people I feel like that are looking for things that are changing. But the consistency of the bakery, from what I’ve seen and from what my staff has seen, hasn’t changed. Since we bake everything from scratch, there’s going to be days where things don’t turn out quite the same. It’s all temperature and ingredient-variable. So we’re just going to have to chalk it up to, you know, that was an off day. But to say that I’m walking in here and changing things is not true.
Q: So you’ve been focused on keeping things running the way customers are used to?A: Yes, maintaining traditions. I did extend the hours an extra hour for people commuting to get here and pick up, and that response has been positive. I would like to, after the holiday season, look into a more technologically advanced ordering system. Right now, everything’s done by hand. This is our system, and it’s worked for years and years and years, and it’s great, but I think that there’s definitely a push to go more online. I want to look into it, but I don’t want to rush into it because I don’t want to rock the boat too much in my first year or two.
Q: Have you noticed any changes in what people were ordering when you worked at the bakery before versus now?
A: There’s definitely been more of a push to include more alternative options, which we’re definitely open to, creating vegan options. And you have to be in this community where there are so many dietary restrictions. We don’t have a separate facility to bake gluten-free options, so we make sure to let people know that everything’s wheat free so there could be a cross contamination aspect, but we do our best trying to get a wide variety of things for a wide variety of customers.
Q: What’s your favorite item that Icing on the Cake sells?
A: I would say the pumpkin pumpkin pie bar. I used to have a thing with one of my coworkers — we’d find the perfect one, and that was the one that we’d have on our lunch break. I like the idea that you can have a pumpkin pie in the middle of this season and you don’t have to order a whole pie. [That’s] more of a seasonal thing. I’d say the year-round enjoyment for me is called a vanilla big top cookie. It kind of reminds me of those soft vanilla cookies you used to buy after school, at 7/11 or something like that. But it’s better than that, it’s so much better. It’s a soft, cake-like cookie.
Profile
Name: Maggie Raye
Position: Owner and president, Icing on the Cake, inc.Education: Bachelor of Arts in recording arts from Loyola Marymount UniversityHometown: Las VegasResidence: San JoseAge: 41
5 things to know about Maggie Raye:
- Raye bakes sourdough at home for fun, and regularly gives loaves away on Instagram. (Follow her @rayeofsunshinesourdough).
- She has producer credits on albums by Andrea Bocelli and Josh Groban.
- She loves Broadway shows and is a longtime theater kid.
- In another life, Raye used to work in tractor sales.
- She likes to dye her hair funky colors.