Review: Angelo’s Bakery from Claudie’s Collection

We went to the American Girl store with high hopes of bringing Angelo’s Bakery from Claudie’s collection to Islandshire. (You all know, we’re doll “food crazy” around here!) While we try to review items with both display/photo adults and playing children in mind, the price of this set makes it impossible for us to recommend to either crowd. Some of you will say, “Those are just retreads, and we all have those pieces already.” Others will say, “My family doesn’t own any of those pieces, so it’s all fresh and exciting to us.” We really try to keep an open mind when reviewing new items, because every buyer hasn’t been doing this for decades. This time, regardless of which group you fall into, we believe that AG has dropped any pretense at quality and overpriced what could only before have passed as a Walmart or Target set. Sad, considering they had the opportunity to produce one of their bestselling items ever. A lot of people have been waiting for a bakery (and/or a donut shop, of course), and all little kids love play food.

I’ve taken this long to write a review, because we wanted to make sure that we weren’t just reacting to a disappointing display. That simply isn’t the case, though. Ten days of looking at photos and discussion haven’t changed our minds. It took the three of us to write this review, and I hope it helps all of you to make a decision you’ll be happy with.

The whole Bakery Set was on open-display at an AG store, and the three of us spent a lot of time handling it. So, if you have any questions, don’t be afraid to ask. They had the third panel folded up against the wall, so we can’t show you the whole thing open. You’ll get to kinda see it from the back, though.

Let’s cut straight to the bottom line. This is a below-one-star review. We aren’t going to use the word “quality”, even preceded by the word “low”. We thought it was really cheaply constructed and a huge disappointment (especially considering the price tag). I know that Mattel owns and produces American Girl items, but they seem to have lost sight of the fact that they are not selling this to the Barbie crowd. Not with these prices. Collectors aside (which Mattel should not make the mistake of doing), it’s difficult for me to justify spending this much money on AG’s real market audience (not the 10-12 year olds they advertise to). If quality isn’t an issue for your small kids, perhaps the same money spent at any or all of the big-box stores selling 18″ doll playsets would give you more for your money. Surely, parents with small children can find something to buy that gives a dollar-for-dollar value. And, in my opinion, this is not it.

The main section (i.e., the short three-panel wall) does not open all the way, or it would fall over. (Those non-removable, thick, white plastic pieces inserted into the hinged areas stick out and prevent you from opening it all the way.) Not very helpful for static display or photo play. It looks like a science-fair board that’s been folded backwards. The sides on a science-fair board usually point forward during display of the project. This bakery is very disconcerting with its backward orientation. But this is the least of the problems, really.

American Girl couldn’t decide whether the “front side” was supposed to be the outside of a bakery building or an inside wall. And, if inside, was the wall in the kitchen where Claudie’s father baked or in the front of the store where people could see the day’s inventory and choose what they wanted? I can only imagine that “decision fatigue” caused the AG designers to just say “throw it all in on the one side” and use a lot of printed designs and molded plastic on the fiberboard to make it look like they meant for it to look like this.

The two little “glass”-fronted doors open, but they have the hunkiest set of huge screws inside, and AG made no effort to hide them. (It looks even worse in real life.) You definitely wouldn’t want to display this with the doors open. The fake drawers are just molded plastic that don’t open. The bottom shelf area is open storage. The whole “hutch” would have been cute as a free-standing unit, but here it looks a lot like a thin slice of the Truly Me modern kitchen glued onto a wall.

The back side appears to have been a last-minute thought, with that molded-plastic “oven” complete with handle that none of us could move. We think it’s supposed to have moved that spring-loaded door up and down, but we pushed hard enough that we were afraid we’d break the handle off and it still didn’t do a thing. Think Barbie house. Cheap plastic. (Take a look at the already bowed grey oven “handle”.) That’s all printed designs on the back, except for the “oven” in the center and gold hook on the left side. How are you supposed to fold the piece up, since both sides have 3d components? How does it come shipped to you? Do you have to assemble it? We couldn’t figure it out. One thing’s certain, though. You won’t be able to fold this piece and store it flat after you’ve set it up. Given that AG’s site says it’s 11.2″ deep when folded, and after lots of looking at the store, we’re assuming that the best you can hope for is to just fold the sides at a right angle to the center panel for storage. (If we’re wrong, please let me know.) AG didn’t even try to hide those ugly hinges back there, like they did on Maryellen’s diner wall and Nanea’s market. Construction of “the wall” is MFD (fiberboard). Metal hinge screws and heavy fiberboard. Not a good combo. Especially with a lot of folding back and forth. Since it’s just a single hinged wall and not like the two furniture pieces we just mentioned, which have a solid piece of building holding itself up, it probably won’t be long before hinge and wall start to separate.

The three pieces of cheap plastic “furniture” are not as nice as the Our Generation Juice Bar of a couple years ago, and they’re a lot smaller in scale. Definitely too small for us to use with an 18″ doll. The “work table” is ridiculously cheap and way too small for the dolls. It’s a plastic top with a cheap-looking wood-grain printed MFD for the base.

The plastic three-tier cart has plastic “wheels” that don’t roll or move (just plastic molded to look like wheels). The sides are thin, hollow plastic; the shelves are cheap plastic like the Grand Hotel.

The short display case has the same cheap plastic construction. It looks like an off-brand piece when compared with Maryellen’s Seaside Diner BAKERY CASE. (Which is still available at AG for $95 and is, in our opinion, one of the BEST sets they’ve ever produced. Quality construction, lots of accessories and food, cash register, and –best of all — everything is perfectly sized for 18″ dolls.) Since there is nothing 1920s-specific about the design of Claudie’s bakery pieces, we recommend you buy Maryellen’s Bakery Set and add your own food items. Besides, her Dad was famous for his cakes, not pies and pretzels. You should be able to do a much better set-up if you look around for other 18″ doll sets. The same $298 would get you a nicer lot with a little bit of online looking around and shopping.

The cake/fruit display tray is made of what looks like PVC-pipe-like plastic and is very cheap in the hand. Even the color-that-looks-like-PVC is a turn-off.

You’ll recognize most of the food, ingredients and kitchen utensils from various previous AG releases, many of which are still floating around out there. However, a couple of them were worse than previous pieces and should never have been released by AG. The pastry blender (black handle with silver blades in the first photo) compares to the red spaghetti server in AG’s Italian Dinner Set (as pitiful a piece of plastic as you’ll ever see). I use a pastry blender quite often and have always wanted one for my dolls. What a disappointment! And the frosting bag feels like a solid piece of resin and is so ridiculously tiny that even a doll wouldn’t try to use it. The faux pottery bowl on the bottom of the shelf in the second photo appears to be a retread from Kit’s Preserves set.

This brings us to the “Claudie pieces”. Some of them are hybrids, while others are new molds, but we want to say that we wouldn’t include any of them in a single photo if they were free to us. They don’t look like food. They’re hunky, wrong-shaped, strangely colored and very unappetizing. What did they think they were doing? The pineapple-upside down cake (?????!!!!!) is Blaire’s cornbread pan filled with four pieces of something that’s been molded and finished in a non-edible color, looking like someone poured a super thick, shiny epoxy into a mold with no detail. The “lemon cake with white glaze” (think Bitty Baby) and “guava roll cake” are Barbie at its worst. The banana fritters were, according to my sister, “disgusting”. (They’re in the second photo, on the silver tray to the right.) She says, “I wouldn’t buy those to repaint, even. They looked like three-in-one anemic buns with a rectangular misprint on the side and maggots on top.” (My sister is usually very calm and reserved.) The pies were recolored Sonoma-Williams pie sets.

We’ve saved the rectangular “chocolate cake” for last. The photo says it all (just like the pineapple and guava pieces). That’s printing on the end of the plastic. Plastic as cheap as a Barbie set ever got. I’d hate to think what Claudie’s father (famous for his window-display cakes) would think of this. Not happy, I’m sure. Oh, maybe this is Claudie’s effort at decorating from Book One. No, that’s not it. I’ve seen the illustration, and even her first attempt with a round layer cake shames this. I have no idea why they think this would help a buyer justify spending $298 on this set.

The only thing we’d actually own were the two round “rye bread” loaves (shown left of sign). They were surprisingly nice, made of a heavy resin. (That thing at the bottom that looks like a baby’s sorting ring is the pineapple cake. Sorry that I had to show it to you again.) Unfortunately, $298 for two loaves of resin bread is a bit out of our budget (smile).

The cash box is a less-than-Barbie-worth piece, with its coins that even AG won’t show on their site. They aren’t coins, just thick plastic discs. (The black check marks on the pieces are the store’s way of marking display pieces and won’t be on what you buy.)

The jar of jam is one piece of molded plastic. There is no lid. And the “jam” is a thin ring of plastic stuck against the inner walls of the “jar”. If you look at the second photo, where you’re looking through the bottom, what you’re seeing is a hollow plastic tube. And, near the far end, that’s the “layer of jam” that you would see from the top. The canisters marked “sugar” and “brown sugar” are one-piece plastic “jars” (no lids) filled with loose mylar glitter. Like the kind you use for crafting. That sticks with static all over the inside of the plastic containers.

When we first saw AG’s online site photos for this bakery, we looked all over for the usual photo of all the accessories included in the set. (As you all know, we’ve bought multiples of some of the larger sets just to get their accessories.) Having handled the piece up close, we now know why they don’t show you. They’re probably too embarrassed. Or they don’t want you to see what you’d be paying for. Either way, this is a set unworthy of the American Girl brand. That’s our opinion, anyway. If it had been in one of the big-box stores for, say, $99, you might consider it for child’s play. I definitely do not recommend buying this set. If you have your heart set on it, though, I recommend that you find a way to see it first.