Leda’s Bake Shop

Though Leda’s is currently closed, I’m sure when they re-​open my love for Leda’s will not abate.
Whenever I find myself in the LA-​area I always make sure I stop at Leda’s. Inside this tiny shop is a bakery case that I would love to have installed in my home, filled daily with the mini-​cupcakes of my dreams.
Though Leda’s mainly offers mini-​cupcakes, don’t let their diminutive size mislead you. These tiny bites pack a delicious punch!
I’m a huge fan of the passionfruit cupcake — a light yellow cake with a dollop of passionfruit curd topped with passionfruit buttercream. There are few things that rate higher than eating a fresh, mouth-​puckering passionfruit and these cupcakes distill that essence down perfectly.
The chocolate peanut butter also ranks as one of my favorites — a smooth peanut butter frosting with a rich, moist chocolate cake.
My latest discovery was the pumpkin. I’m loathe to share my cupcakes, especially when they’re mini, but the pumpkin was good enough for me to take a bite of and be willing to offer my sister the other half so she could know just how good pumpkin cupcakes could be (We’d sampled a few disappointing pumpkin cakes from other bakeries previously).
The intensity of the flavors and moist cake are secondary to Leda’s frosting. Leda’s offers the real thing: meringue-​based buttercream that is rich, buttery, and expresses flavors perfectly. Bad for those, like my niece and nephew, who can’t wait for their frosting to come to room temperature, but excellence for cupcake nerds like me.
The funny thing about my niece and nephew — sugar addicts if there ever were any — they love Leda’s cupcakes right out of the bakery case (as if we could get them to wait!). They were also our vegan cupcake tasters, mostly because my niece wanted «the purple one» and «the pink one» (purple and pink fondant shapes atop the cupcakes). Though I’m usually wary of vegan cupcakes, these stood up to the flavor test, and also received thumbs up from the little one who I expected to spit out the cake.
Leda’s, when you re-​open in February 2009 I’ll be back. Don’t change your recipes and my devotion will remain true.

To stop selling good cupcakes is like making alcohol illegal.
Last few days left to get your kicks. I enjoy the Peanut Butter Cupcake. But, you might have to get whatever is left. I plan to go every morning and buy them out. Haha, just kidding. But seriously, I will. Haha, just kidding again. However, I wouldn’t be surprised if someone else will be doing that. Cupcake extremists.

This Saturday I drove out to Leda’s to check out the vegan cupcakes, not only was the presentation immaculate, but they were delicious as well!
I bought one of each of the vegan treats, Peanut Butter, Chocolate Peanut butter, Chocolate raspberry, Coconut, and Carrot. My fav was definitely the Choco Raspberry. The icing ‘glue’ they use to make it stick to the inside of the packing box, I was assured was vegan, so i scraped it up for a taste. Even the ‘glue’ is yummy! The employees were very friendly and informative as well. Oh I also tried a pecan bar, which was decadent and soft. Mmmmm! Its about a 45 minute drive for me, but I will definitely be back again!!! ;)

Damn you, Leda’s! Why aren’t you going to make mini-​cupcakes anymore? They are going, going, gone after 10÷18÷08.
After eating four hot dogs, I managed to literally crawl over to Leda’s for a couple of mini cupcakes. I don’t know why I decided on coconut lime considering my hatred of shredded coconut but I figured if anyone was going to change my mind, Leda’s should be able to do it. Well, let’s just say I didn’t hate it but I didn’t love it. The frosting was wonderful though.
I much preferred my other cupcake choice, the strawberry more. The frosting tasted like the best strawberry ice cream I ever had. Mmmm.
I also sampled the vegan brownie. Oh wow… it didn’t taste «weird.» Woah, I actually really l liked it and would order a whole one. I also tasted a bit of a chocolate chip cookie which was fine but the peanut butter brownie was really great as well. But you know, what the vegan brownie was better. I’m in a tizzy right now.
The shop is really cute with half the store being the mini-​cupcake display (which is going away! *sobs*).
They’re currently only open Friday and Saturdays to the public being Tuesday through Thursdays are catering days.
No public restrooms but they said their neighbor Señor Fred usually doesn’t mind a stray person or two coming in for a pee break.
Leda! Please bring back the mini cupcakes!

Oh my goodness… I don’t think I’ve had any cupcakes, ever, that tasted as good as the ones here. My sister Jenny, aka my cupcake tasting buddy, and I split the following:
— Chocolate White Chocolate (no such thing as chocolate overkill here)
— Chocolate Peanut Butter (tastes just like a Reese’s PB cup, which is my favorite supermarket brand candy)
— Carrot (how they managed to make carrot cake likable is beyond me)
— Coconut Lime (can’t go wrong with this combo)
— Passionfruit (possibly their best cupcake, but it’s hard to choose)
— Velvet (moist and just the right amount of sweetness, but Yummy Cupcakes’ red velvet is better)
Each bite was light, airy, and perfectly moist. The street parking is a pain and prices are through-​the-​roof ridiculous. However, the cupcakes themselves deserve more than five stars, so it would be unjust to deduct any stars for those reasons. Plus, something’s gotta keep me from attempting to subsist on Leda’s cupcakes alone.

I ordered 50 mini-​cupcakes in passion fruit, red velvet, kids vanilla, and chocolate chocolate for a party. Let’s just say I only had one cupcake because I saw guests finding creative ways to sneak out with a handful of cupcakes on their way out.
I cannot describe how yummy these mini-​cupcakes are and they are so cute & happy, they can make anyone’s day just a bit brighter!!! I heard from my guests all flavors are wonderful and my west LA friends were all shocked how I drove into the valley to pick them up. They know me and they know how much I loathe the 405 North and 101 North freeway.
Will order these cupcakes for any occasion I can think of from now on.

I retract my previous statement. The best lemon bar is not at Buttercake Bakery. It’s at Leda’s.
Holy mother this lemon bar was epic. It was so tart!!! But so did not remind me of cleaning products!!! The goo was sooo gooey and perfect! Also, I really appreciate how the top layer wasn’t at all tough/​rubbery like the ones on most lemon bars. And the crust. OH the crust. It was thick and flaky and surprisingly (I don’t know how they did it) not that heavy or buttery.
When I looked on the website, I remember thinking to myself, Leda’s cupcakes look almost too cute to actually taste good. Thankfully, I couldn’t have been more wrong. I ordered three of their mini cupcakes (only $ 1.50 each!): passion fruit, chocolate raspberry, and coconut lime. Out of the three, the passion fruit one was the best. I don’t know what Leda’s puts in their cupcakes, but all of them were so light and delicious. Unlike most cupcakes with the thick, stiff frosting piled on top, Leda’s frosting had more of a lighter, whipped cream consistency, without sacrificing any flavor.
My friend ordered 5 of their mini vegan cupcakes and enjoyed them just as much I enjoyed my non-​vegan ones. We sampled their baked goods, all of which were ridiculously good (both the vegan and non-​vegan).
I cannot wait to come back here! Unfortunately, they’re only open Fridays and Saturdays for walk-​in orders. =(It’s gonna be a long week…

Wow! I just had what has to be the best vegan birthday cake ever!
My boyfriend surprised me with a vegan vanilla coconut birthday cake, and it was delicious! It looked so good sitting there in the box in my fridge, I had to restrain myself to wait all night to taste it.
Even cut thin, the servings were so big because the cake was 3 beautiful layers of yummy.
I can’t wait for an excuse to get another vegan cake!

I regularly drive from Pasadena for the vegan cupcakes here, and they’ve done about a dozen birthday cakes for friends and family in recent years. Absolutely worth the drive, the wait, whatever you have to do. For those of us who are strict vegans, this is heaven itself.
Let me echo the vote for the chocolate peanut butter cupcakes as being particularly outstanding.

I could pass on the vegan red velvets but the stand-​outs for me were the dulce de leche & the chocolate peanut butter. I wanted to really love the key lime and the lemon mini cupcakes but found them OK.
I was warned when I left the shop to be sure to let the cupcakes sit to room temperature. I ate the key lime a bit too quick and the frosting felt a bit greasy. But later on that night, I tried some with my roommate and the frosting melted just right.
As for the cuteness… they are cute! But definitely most cute when there are bunch of ones with different colors and designs all together. I must note however, that they get extra stars from me due to their wonderful customer service!

For a special event, do it. However, there are better tasting cupcakes elsewhere. Like others have said, expensive for the amount of cupcake you get. Basically you’re paying for a boutique cupcake. Fancy appearance, cute size, additional unnecessary filling. Fillings are not necessarily good, or do not necessarily add «flavor value» to the cupcake. You get fancy Jetson’s décor atop each cupcake. Very fun and stylish, but not adding further value to your tastebuds or belly.
As others have said, small. The majority of the shop is counter, prep, and cashier space. Leaving very little room for the actual baked goods, and very little room for customers to move around in when they’re all in there trying to figure out what they want, order, and wait to get their stuff to go. Why do you LA shops do this? You drive me CRAZY! Sprinkles does that too. Don’t bother with putting two tables in there people, just make the whole shop shopping space and let people eat on the street or in their cars, it’s frustrating.
Anyhoo. Buttercream tastes like BUTTER. It doesn’t taste like butter cream, seriously. Buttercream should be a halfblend between frosting and butter, and this just tastes like butter with a mild hint of another flavor, but barely there. Other than the buttercream, they use a frosting that is NOT cream cheese based.
Deeply disappointing once I put the red velvet in my mouth. They removed the dye. Thus, the red velvet looks like rum cake or carrot cake with a tan. It tastes ok, but isn’t special. The point of red velvet is excessive moisture from red dye. If you take out the red dye, then make it excessively moist with something else.
Agreed, the bread is not cupcakey. It is muffiny. It is also dryish. This is probably due to the fact it sits with a lot of space around on it on a cute tray in cooler. It’s not exactly a COLD cupcake but it is not room temp and I get the distinct impression it is not as moist as it could be because it’s sitting in there.
Really don’t dig the fillings, as you may have gathered. They had a key lime coconut and a lemon cupcake. They tasted exactly the same.
Staff IS very nice. They come round and take up more space fetching your treats for you then head back to the register to ring you up. This is inefficient. Understandable they don’t want you handling the treats. But floorplan is bad and should probably be built more like Sprinkles or a chocolate shop.
BEST THING THERE: Scones, cookies, biscuits. The scones are the moistest scones you’ll ever have and remain that way, even after reheated in the oven. They also give you very generous samples of a bunch of stuff lying around, sometimes an entire cookie jar filled with whole cookies.
Great idea. Just very little substance to back it up. If I return, I’ll be fetching the scones. Ginger and cranberry ones were pretty awesome.
Also amused and pleased to see the Vegan option. So, that’s very cool.

Okay — I’m probably going to get hate mail for this but honestly — what’s the hype about?
I feel that Leda’s cupcakes are wayyyyyyy overrated.
I will not conform to the masses.
I had the opportunity to try them today (Thank you Amy K =) in celebration of Linden’s Birthday dimsum brunch bash.
The ONLY reason this place got 2 stars is because of the super mini size mini cupcakes & because of the cute little toppings on every single one. But as far as the presentation goes — yeah, they are cute but why Unilocalers are in awe about it — I just don’t understand.
Honestly — as far as taste goes — they taste like muffins — not cupcakes. So it totally threw me off. Good muffins but I wanted a cupcake. The icing is over the top sweet & overpowers the mild muffin-​like cake portion of it.
Don’t get me wrong — they aren’t awful.
But I can take them or leave them.
(keep in mind this coming from the resident sweet tooth herself– is madness.)
Peep the pix.

My friend and I went to Leda’s the other day… to check out what everybody’s been talking about. We got several of those mini cupcakes to try and I thought they were good, but didn’t think it was all that… like what people have been talking about. I do have to say their presentation are really cute and nice. They have 15 different flavors of cupcakes. Although all the mini cupcakes were so cute & yummy looking, only one stood out from my taste buds, Chocolate Peanut Butter! Mind you, I only like peanut butter and not love it.
So here it is the «Likes» and «Dislikes!»
Likes:
~Clean.
~Nice looking pastries.
~The size… small, so therefore you think you are
having a lot, but not really (about 4 mini’s = 1 average
size cupcake).
~Only $ 1.50 each… it’s a plus when you want to try all of them.
~Vegan cupcakes… although I’m not a vegetarian nor a
vegan, I like the fact that customers have OPTIONS… and
that’s a plus!
~Nice employees.
Dislikes:
~Pricey…funny I say that because although they are $ 1.50, you
end up buying several of them costing somewhat a whole lot. We
bought 7 mini’s and it came out to $ 10… Now, you are thinking
$ 10 isn’t a lot of money, but when you realize all the cupcakes
you just purchased adds up to 1 ½ average size cupcake…
mmm… yeah!
~Small seating area.
Check it out! There’s no excuse for yummy in your tummy! :oP

****Leda’s is not closed down, they will reopen again in early 2009!****
Leda’s cupcakes are tiny treasures of sugar and color. Cheap they are not but the flavors and textures are absolute perfection. They even offer a few vegan choices!
When I find myself in the valley with new cash in my pocket I usually head on over for a trio of cupcakes. the presentation is simply adorable and the flavors make me swoon. Tiny little bites of cake topped off by the creamiest ganache I have ever had. I haven’t met a cupcake here I didn’t like. I want to marry the ginger scones and maybe polka once or twice with the vegan peanut butter cookies.
Leda’s cupcakes are itty bitty. The fondant shapes that tickle the most perfect amount of frosting make for smile inducing eye candy. You can even score some coffee while you are at it. If you can appreciate the artistry in homemade cupcakes, I recommend Leda’s. If yer a frosting fiend head on over to Yummy Cupcakes and if you prefer a tasty bar hit Big Sugar. Lucky for you, you have me around to order you about!

I’ve followed up on this bakery for over a year until I actually made the drive over there. It was well worth the drive and traffic for 2 dozen cupcakes + chocolate chip cookie + lemon bar.
Leda’s really hit the spot for me since their cupcakes weren’t as sweet as I thought. The balance between the cake and the frosting was terrific. The cupcake literally melts in your mouth, and you can’t help but grab another one. It took so much patience to wait until after dinner to try the cute cakes.
My all time favs were the strawberry, red velvet, & Passion fruit.
This is a must try!

Strolling along… la la la. Hey, what’s this? OOO, let’s go inside.
Walked in, saw the dainty little cakes so preciously presented. We ordered 1 for each of us.
chocolate, chocolate, chocolate
dulce de leche
espresso
carrot
The really nice and friendly girl gave us instructions to wait about 5 minutes before eating because it just came out of the refrigerated case.
INSTRUCTIONS IGNORED!
INHALED.
GONE.
Mine anyway. (Espresso) I shoved the whole thing in my mouth. So good. Perfectly sweet. Not sugarly.
my daughter: «mom, I think this is real buttercream!»
me: «rrapajr ffkhgj wrwehffnww, snort»
my daughter:: «moommm, did you already eat your cupcake?»
me: giant grin…
So good, we came back about an hour later to buy more.
It wasn’t Ralphs 1 dozen for $ 2.99. But, it was so worth it.
Nice touch: they had lots of samples that you could help yourself with!

Adorable cupcakes… disappointing that they «specialize» in minis (i.e., more money, less cake). The cupcakes were all moist and delicious (velvet, chocolate, kid’s chocolate, lemon, espresso). I just wouldn’t trek all the way here (from Westside/​South Bay) for the $ 1.50 minis. In fact, the one regular sized cucpake I got (at $ 3) was way smaller than those elsewhere.
So… 4 stars for appearance and taste. 3 stars for value!!!

OMG– this place is SOO cute! And I would like to say…
It’s ALL ABOUT THE FROSTING! The frosting for the cupcakes were AWESOME. The frosting just melted in my mouth. I was very indifference about the texture of the cakes, but it was also very hard to judge and taste the texture of the cake especially since I had to split the mini cupcakes with 2 other people.
I loved that each of the cupcakes had a little surprise in the middle of the frosting, like a shot of caramel in the middle of the Dulce De Leche.
Because of the miniature size, we got to try 7 seven different favors:
Lemon
Passion Fruit
Vanilla with Strawberry. mMmMmm loved the frosting
Carrot Cake
Vanilla Cake with Chocolate– Eh… I didn’t even like the frosting…
Chocolate Chocolate Yummy Chocolate!
Dulce De Leche– mmMMMM goood!
I definitely want to go back for round two of Leda’s cupcakes!

When I read about the store’s opening a couple of years ago, I dragged my friend with me to figure out what made this place so damn amazing. First off, it took me FOREVER to find this place. I must’ve driven past it 3 or 4 times, and then of course, finding street parking on Ventura was another nightmare in itself.
Once we got there, though, I was impressed by its cute but simple décor. The owners were friendly and enthused to show off their creations. I had the chocolate peanut butter, dulce de leche, and buttercream flavors, and I can’t fully express how absolutely AMAZING they tasted.
On the other hand, I have to admit the goods are pricey, especially considering how freaking tiny the cupcakes are (I can eat 5 at a time). But if you’re looking to spoil your sweet tooth, this is a good place to do it.

Mini cupcakes are perfect for splitting with friends, because you can get half a dozen. And we sure did… and brought some home, too. I’d happily go again.
Kid’s choc/​choc: very rich
Passion fruit: tart buttercream, tart filling, buttery cake that’s not too heavy or oily.
Lemon: lemon curd and lemony frosting?! Soooo good. Lighter flavor than the passion fruit.
Chocolate cupcake/​raspberry frosting and curd injection: real chunks of berry in the frosting! Soft taste overall, both my friend and I immediately went «ooh» upon our first bite.
Dulce de leche: too sweet, weird aftertaste.

If you are looking to be the star of your next bridal shower or baby shower or girl’s night or thanks for giving me work event, then look no further than Leda’s.
I discovered this place while looking for a unique thank you gift for a freelance gig I did for Sex And The City and they actually had this:
They then were able to do custom little mini cupcakes for me with the shoes on them and all I can say is thank you. Not only did I get my check faster, but they still call me for freelace gigs.
The quality is also amazing and talk about service with a smile. Everyone here was so nice and helpful and I really can’t recommend this place enough! :)