About Us

To quote Joseph Schmidt (of Joseph Schmidt Confections),
San Francisco, 2005

“This cookbook is full of the creations I baked everyday at Fantasia for 12 years, a great education for my future success. As someone who loves fine chocolates and desserts, I am sure this pastry book will delight former Fantasia customers and new connoisseurs. Those who love to bake are lucky that Ernest has published these magnificent recipes. He is one of my mentors, such a talented konditor, and above all a wonderful human being.”

The secret is out! Finally, Ernest Weil, founder and owner of Fantasia Confections (1948-1989) and the original baker of the famous "Blum's Coffee Crunch Cake", has written a pastry cookbook in which he shares the secrets of more than 150 of Fantasia's most popular recipes including the Sacher Torte and
Florentine Cookies. For over forty years, San Franciscans were
pampered with Fantasia's mouth-watering cakes, pastries,
and cookies. Now, you too, the beginner baker as well as the
advanced, can pamper and impress your friends and relatives by
baking these magnificent recipes for all to enjoy.

Jack Shelton of San Francisco Magazine in 1973 called Fantasia “not only the best bakery in San Francisco, but one of the best in America.”

Why another pastry cookbook?
Because Fantasia customers have continued to complain since the store closed that they miss all of our desserts and can't find them anywhere else. Love To Bake provides a large number of Fantasia Confections recipes everyone loved to devour, providing the opportunity for them to be baked at home. The book is a combination autobiography and recipe book. As we have been told over and over by our customers, "there was/is no other bakery like Fantasia." So... there is no other recipe book like
"Love To Bake."