This is the name of the new business venture my wife and I have cooked up. I was talking about it in another thread and didn't want to further derail things there. Basically, I have enjoyed sampling the cupcakes from around the country during my recent travels and decided it would make for a nice family business here in my Northeast Saint Petersburg, Florida neighborhood. My mother will be moving down from Pensacola to act as head baker, and my wife and I will be managing. While not such an original idea for a business, I plan to use the cakes from my childhood (in Hawaii) as a way to differentiate ourselves from other bakeries in the area. We plan to have a Haupia Cupcake, Passion Orange Guava, Chantilly/German Chocolate, etc. Construction begins May 15th (when we get back from our honeymoon), and we hope to have everything ready for a July 1st soft opening.
Do you guys have flavors planned or? And please don't make half the cupcake just frosting. It is just overkill. And congrats on this new venture.
Scott, I love cupcakes!! Instead of cake at our wedding, Danielle and I had a cupcake tower. It was AWESOME. Good luck with the venture. Cupcakes rule!
Where are you located? There are a few cupcake shops around Chicago and they most of them seem to do very well (probably because my fat ass is stopping by there quite often ). Good luck and congrats!
Thanks Joe! I updated my original post above with some of the flavor ideas we are considering. And the frosting we plan on limiting so as not to overpower the flavor of the cake.
I have squeaky Vinyl Cupcakes-oh yes I do. Cupcakes also make a good backdrop for objects that look like candy.
Thanks guys and gals for the well wishes!!! I always loved the idea of opening a family business where my folks could retire to and have pride in the world class products we would sell. Kind of like some of the family owned businesses in France, that have sold the same soap made in their storefront for over 100 years. And I really feel a bit of pride in trying to do my part in rebuilding our economy right now. I have a feeling a lot of unemployed people are going to finally take steps to start businesses of their own and in doing so generate more income and lifestyle choices than they ever enjoyed while working for the company that let them go in the first place. These are going to be the stories that start to lift the confidence back in our economy and get things headed back in the right direction again. Just my 2 cents.
Well I'll post it over here too - good luck with your shop! Sounds like a lot of fun! I wish I had the balls and capital to do something like this. You should cook up a skullbrain cupcake! Maybe bake a gummy-brain into the middle of a white cupcake.
You should probably consider this for special occasions! http://www.surlatable.com/product/547901.do I have! *check out additional views
congrats on the new business venture man. all the flavors sound really good. gotta agree with joe, dont use too much icing. i hate when places do that.
+1! Strawberry cupcake w/ gooey chocolate center topped w/ buttercream frosting. And not some bright pink cupcake so people think it's strawberry, but normal looking cake that tastes like strawberry.
I know what you mean, Hank. POG cupcakes!! It's too bad you weren't around to try Dean's spicy mango cupcakes. They were pretty good. Aiming for the next Citizen Cake perhaps?
Thanks for that Missy! That's a cool site. We have been digging up as much information as we can about cupcakes. After a couple months now I still feel like a complete newb in the business. I have been working with a specialty food distributor and their test kitchen to try and come up with the best flavor using the finest ingredients from local farms and companies around the world. I am insistent on using world class chocolate of the" Valrona Chocolate" type quality for instance even though it is going to nearly double my per cake food cost.
Good luck on the endeavor, Scott. Family businesses are something this country needs more of. Yeah, Hank, I'm hungry now too. Cupcakes rock. I'd love to try the orange guava. It sounds great.
We are definitely going to have both buttercream and cream cheese frosting. For our carrot cupcake offering we will be using shredded Chantenay carrots from Canada to create a more concentrated flavor, with a lightly salted frosted cream cheese filling inside (and a small dollop on top) to finish things off.
Yeah, the POG (Passion Orange Guava) cupcake, I think will be our top seller. That or the Jack and Coke chocolate cupcake where we substitiute Coke for milk. This one tastes amazing as well. Going back to POG. It's sad what we can't get out here in Florida that is readily available on the West Coast. You literally have to kill someone to find Guava juice, for instance. Now granted, Key Lime pie is great, and so we will be offering a Mojito and Key Lime Cupcake.
