Portillo’s chocolate cake has built a reputation as the go-to dessert and birthday cake for legions of fans. But believe it or not, there are people with a sweet tooth who don’t like chocolate, said Garret Kern, Portillo’s VP of strategy and culinary.
Over 20 years ago, the Chicago-based fast casual introduced Lemon Cake as a seasonal spring-summer dessert, and although it didn’t overtake chocolate, it was very successful.
“I love fall flavors and thought there was room for a different seasonal cake,” said Kern. “I thought about flavors that would work, and a spice cake was something we hadn’t done before.” Although the cake has similar warm, spicy notes to fall’s ubiquitous pumpkin spice flavor profile, “internally we were saying ‘thank goodness it’s not pumpkin!” said Kern.
Into the test kitchen
Baking cakes is a core competency for Portillo’s, he added, but achieving the texture and flavor profile he desired took some trial and error.
He started the R&D process by combining different cake bases with salted caramel frostings. “The toughest challenge was to make sure the frosting and spice cake worked well together and didn’t overpower each other,” he said.
Various levels and blends of spices were tested, and while Kern wouldn’t divulge the final mix, cinnamon is a top component. On the frosting side, some of the recipes were a little too buttery or too salty, he said, until the right balance was achieved. “We also tried spice cake with cream cheese frosting, but the salted caramel and spice cake combination was something that people really craved. It was the perfect combination of salty and sweet with a little spice,” he said. Taste testers included both Portillo’s team members and consumers.
Perfecting the texture was another challenge, said Kern. “Our chocolate cake is known to be super moist and tender, and that’s what guests have come to expect from Portillo’s. We wanted this recipe to be similar in texture and be easy enough to prepare so we could add it to the repertoire across our 90 restaurants.”
Back-of-house baking pros
Portillo’s bakes its cakes every day from scratch, executed by long-tenured team members who are baking pros. Since the preparation technique for the new spice cake is very similar to that of the chocolate cake, little additional training was necessary, said Kern.
Every Portillo’s location is equipped with foodservice-size stand mixers that can prepare batter for eight to 10 cakes at a time. Portillo’s partnered with a supplier to create the proprietary spice blend, so that comes into restaurants already made and measured. The salted caramel frosting is also pre-prepped by a vendor partner and is ready to use; the cakes are frosted by hand.
Every Portillo’s cake is available to purchase whole, by the slice or in a cake shake, with some units baking as many as 100 cakes a day. “We have a tool that marks the icing to indicate where the slices should be cut, but the back-of-house team uses a basic kitchen knife to slice the cakes. Our cakes have a ‘homemade’ quality and an automated slicer would take away from that,” said Kern.
The spices in the Salted Caramel Spice Cake really shine through in the cake shake.
In general Portillo’s sells more slices than whole cakes, he added. Through the month of September, customers who purchase an entrée can get a slice of the limited-time Salted Caramel Spice Cake for just $1. Whole cakes sell for about $28.99 and individual slices and shakes run about up to $3.99, depending on location.
To make the cake shakes, whole slices are blended in—not crumbs or discards. “Every time we offer a new cake, we have a cake shake to go with it,” said Kern, noting that the spice cake is one of his favorites as “the spices really come through when blended into the vanilla shake.”
As VP of strategy and culinary, Kern focuses on the whole menu, with the goal of showing consumers that Portillo’s is “more than hot dogs and Italian beef sandwiches,” he said. Desserts represent about 4% of sales and some restaurants take in as much as $330,000 annually in dessert sales.
Although the Salted Caramel Spice Cake is Portillo’s first new cake in 20 years, Kern thinks that “maybe there’s space for another seasonal cake soon.”