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Innovation

Melissa J.  |  09.06.2012

A lot of people talk about our cupcakes, and we’re certainly not complaining! They’re delicious, and we’re pretty proud of them! One common question we hear is “where do your recipes come from?” Our simple answer: EVERYWHERE!

One of our Cupcake Ninjas might visit a cupcakery in another state and come back exclaiming, “Shut the front door, I had a dark chocolate sea salt caramel cupcake in Ohio and it was the straight up BOMB!” So we might try to see if we can create it . . . and make it even better. Or we might see a feature in a magazine and think, “Hey, could we do something like that?” Or, one of us might come up with an idea for a flavor combination they’d like to try (for instance . . . Lemon Blueberry). The baking ninjas find one or two or three recipes and sort of throw them all together. They might like parts of one recipe, or a piece of another, or how one recipe calls for buttermilk instead of regular milk. Then they’ll begin to experiment with how things bake together, what the best filling is, and how to assemble the cupcake itself (filling, frosting and topping.) It’s really quite work-intensive, but totally worth it.

Each cupcake goes through an average of six variations before we arrive at the best day of all: Tasting and Voting Day! (I capitalize Tasting and Voting Day . . . because I love. And because if you could join us for Tasting and Voting Day, you’d capitalize it, too. You might even lobby for it to become a national holiday.) On Tasting and Voting Day, we all stand in the test kitchen and we eat cupcakes. Yes, for real. Best job EVER, right? Yeah BUDDY!

Each ninja has a say in how the filling complements the cupcake and how the frosting melds with the flavors to create an entire taste experience. Then we discuss efficiency and the realities of creating this cupcake over and over each day. Since we do create every component from scratch, we want to be sure that we can effectively produce them each day without it becoming an inefficient or slow process. We all cast our opinion and our say, and sometimes we go back to the drawing board and try again. Or sometimes it becomes a new seasonal flavor. Or sometimes, just sometimes, we come up with a home-run-I-can’t-believe-how-uber-amazingly-good-this-is flavor and it is welcomed with glee into our family of Oh My Cupcakes! flavor creations.

So where do we find our recipes? We find our recipes EVERYWHERE . . . because inspiration is everywhere. As long as taste remains our primary inspiration, we think we will continue to innovate fantastic new recipes each day, and we hope you agree.

Have a fantastic Autumn season!

With blessings and gratitude,
Melissa

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