Williams Bakery

This bakery is now closed.

My friend and I both bought their pumpkin roll at the Pumpkin Festival. Was so excited to try it but the cream cheese filling was way too sweet. Not like the pumpkin rolls I had eaten growing up in Pennsylvania.

I popped into Williams recently while trying to kill time between meetings. Craving something sweet, this unassuming bakery seemed like the perfect place to try.
The girl working at the counter was really sweet and answered my questions (I only had a few, but being a first-​time customer, I had to get the scoop on the goodies). I knew I wanted to try an éclair, and luckily they offer a mini version to give you a small taste.
Rolling the dice, as I sometimes like to do, I also decided to go for the staff recommendation. Upon telling me her favorite baked good was the Spice Bar, I barely skipped a beat before asking for one of those as well. What’s a Spice Bar, you ask? Apparently the bakers take the leftover cake (all different flavors) and mix them together into the spice bars. The piece I had also had raisins, and tasted a bit cinnamon-​y. It actually tasted exactly like what I would expect from something called a Spice Bar. I would totally order this again. The éclair, on the other hand, was not my favorite. The bottom was soggy and the filling was almost too much. I would have preferred more chocolate on top and less custard in the center. I guess that’s why I rarely order eclairs… I always seem to have this perfect notion in my head of what an éclair should be, and the reality never lives up to the hype. Maybe one day I’ll learn my lesson.
Since I’m not often looking for a sweet treat, I probably won’t be a frequent customer at Williams. But I would like to try their cakes some day, since I think that’s their specialty and the desserts on which they pride themselves.

This is basically an old fashioned, average bakery. However, there are two items on the menu that you won’t find anywhere in town…
The PIG is a wonderful confection of yellow cake batter topped with marshmallow crème, a layer of chocolate and a sprinkling of nuts. It is out of this world!
The RADAR is basically the same thing but made with devil’s food cake batter.
Don’t order anything else or you will be unhappy!

I want to find that tremendous bakery in Richmond, but I haven’t yet. Like a lot of places, Williams probably makes their money on their cakes, which I haven’t had. I have had some of their bread, their tarts, and various cookies, and while they’re all acceptable, I don’t want acceptable.