Los Gatos: Ex-bakery employee buys Icing on the Cake business — recipes and all

In February, Lynn Magnoli announced she was putting her Icing on the Cake bakery up for sale — after 39 years — with the goal of finding “a quality successor to keep this gem of a bakery thriving and evolving.”

The search is over.

South Bay resident Maggie Raye, who worked at the bakery for five years before taking a “stay-at-home-mom” break, has purchased the beloved Los Gatos business and its recipes.

With Raye, “Icing on the Cake is in good hands,” Magnoli told customers in the big reveal this week on social media. “She is aware of the impact the bakery has in and outside of our community, what it has meant to our loyal customers and crew, our history and legacy.”

Raye added a note of her own on the bakery’s Facebook page: “New owner … same delicious Banana Cake!”

For customers and staff, that was a reassuring sign she’s devoted to maintaining the many traditions for which this bakery is known, from that banana best seller to the staggering array of cakes (classic, loaf, pound, cupcakes), fruit and cream pies, cookies, brownies, bars and baked goods for those with special diets.

“What Lynn has built is phenomenal. I don’t intend on changing any of the fan favorites,” she said in an interview. “It would be silly to buy a business and deconstruct it when it’s running so well.”

Raye, who started working the IOTC front counter in 2009, has been spending her first days back at the West Main Street shop “expanding her knowledge,” learning the recipes and becoming reacquainted with employees. “The staff has been so supportive.”

A home baker, she said she actually had long thought she’d like to own a bakery.

“It’s joy inducing. It seems to brighten up everyone’s day when they have a slice of cake or a cookie.”

The self-taught Magnoli, whose baking career started in childhood with a vintage 1965 Easy-Bake Oven, opened the first Icing on the Cake in an old house off North Santa Cruz Avenue in 1985. She moved the operation to West Main Street in 2001 and expanded into a neighboring space in 2013.

“I trust that Icing will carry on in a familiar but fresher way, growing and improving as it always has,” she wrote in her announcement. “There are positive changes that come along with new ownership, and I look forward to assisting Maggie and our team with this transition.”

Details: Open from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Tuesday-Saturday at 50 W. Main St., Los Gatos, with phone orders (408-354.2464) accepted starting at 8 a.m. www.icingonthecakebakery.com