Cupcake Baker of the Week, Heather Saffer, Dollop Gourmet

Have you ever been in your local cupcake shop, wishing you could combine your favorite flavors into your own personal perfect cupcake? Our cupcake baker of the week, Heather Saffer, has you covered. Her New York shop, Dollop, features a cupcake bar that lets you choose your own cake flavor, filling, frosting, and toppings to have your dream cupcake created on the spot. Continue reading to discover what inspires her, and how she’s taking her cupcake bar on the road.

Heather Saffer
Location: Penfield, NY
Website: http://www.dollopgourmet.com

1. How did you get started baking cupcakes?
   I never baked growing up. My mom never baked, nor did my Grandma. One random day, I decided to teach myself how to bake cupcakes because I couldn't find a good one to eat around here. The non-fresh grocery store ones just weren't cutting it. 
2. Do you have any formal training?
   Not unless you count reading blogs and watching youtube videos formal training. I'm completely self-taught. This might just be because I don't take direction well though... 
3. Do you have a signature cupcake, or a personal favorite?
   My standby will always be chocolate cake with fluff filling, peanut butter frosting and bacon. I can never seem to get our corndog cupcake out of my mind though. Saturdays we do Crazy Cupcake Days in which we'll make unique flavors. We've done Chicken & Waffles, BBQ, Corndog, Pizza, and Popcorn & Soda cupcakes just to name a few. People seem to love the unexpectedness! 
4. What lead you to open your own business?
   I always wanted a business but was never really good enough at anything to turn it into a business. When I discovered I was good at making cupcakes, I decided I better go with it because I might never find another thing I'm good at! 
5. How did you come up with the concept of the cupcake bar?
   I have this bad habit of trying to change everything on a menu at a restaurant. Whether it be exchanging white sauce for red sauce or adding peas to my pasta or ordering sushi without avocado, I just always want to tailor a meal to my liking. Hence, I figured with a cupcake bar people could always get their perfect cupcake every time! I used the ice cream shop model of choosing toppings and just carried it a little further to choosing a cake flavor, filling, frosting, and toppings. 
6. What are the challenges to operating on the cupcake bar model as opposed to a standard cupcake shop?
   There are definitely some different challenges. There's more labor involved so sometimes it takes a bit longer for people to get in and out. We can make the cupcakes quickly but people can't make decisions that quickly. Also, there's a lot more cleanup and some additional prep involved. All in all I think the benefits definitely outweigh the costs of the Cupcake Bar versus a traditional display case. We get to interact with our customers more, and it's more fun for us to be creating throughout the day versus just boxing cupcakes from a case. Plus, the cupcakes are always really fresh because we bake every morning and then keep them in airtight containers until they're ready to be decorated on the spot for the customers. 
7. You’ve also started a mobile cupcake bar. How does that work? What kinds of events are you doing with that?
   The mobile cupcake bar is pretty much taking the concept at the shop, narrowing down the flavor options a bit, and bringing it to people's weddings, offices and other parties. We set up a table with the naked cupcakes, fillings, frostings, and toppings and have people come through the line as we create their cupcakes on the spot for them! It's great fun for us to get out to different venues and for the people we're catering for. It's definitely different than just setting up a cupcake tier (which we also do) or delivering boxes of cupcakes. I just love the interactive aspect of setting up something so custom at an outside venue. 
8. What is the best business advice you've ever gotten? 
   Act as though everyone is a potential customer. 
9. Any advice you wish someone had given you before you started?
   I definitely wish I had a mentor when I started. Actually, I wish I had a mentor now, too! I would have wanted someone to tell me how extremely stressful owning a business can be. Also, that most things will not go the way you want them to. It's a constant struggle, yet it's well worth the effort if you keep your eye on your dream. 
10. What’s the most difficult aspect of running your own business?
    In a general sense, the most difficult aspect might be balancing everything. It's especially difficult not letting stress take control and remaining calm when things go awry. My business is my life right now, and hence what affects my business affects me as a whole. 
11. Do you work with original recipes? How do you come up with those?
    My basic recipes I developed myself having tweaked recipes I found around the web and such. All of the new recipes I come up with are usually combinations of my basic recipes with added flavors. When we do Crazy Cupcake Saturdays, I have to develop some really off the wall recipes. Most of the time they turn out great, but there certainly have been some failures. 
12. How do you market yourself?
    I definitely need to do some more marketing. Basically, I use social media and word of mouth. I was lucky enough to get some media exposure last summer, but that only keeps you in people's minds for so long. I'm looking to do some fun contests and promotions to get the word out. Also, I'm not very shy so I talk to everyone about my business when I'm out and about. 
13. How does social media play a role in your business?
    Social Media plays a huge role. Every morning I post on Facebook our featured flavors of the day, which draws a lot of people into the shop. I'll also run promotions and giveaways through Facebook. I use twitter a lot, too, to interact with the public. 
14. Any goals for expanding your business?
    I definitely have goals for expanding the business. I have some fairly outside-the-box ideas that I'd love to act on, and that I think would be a huge hit. It always comes down to money, location, and opportunity. Hopefully someday soon we'll see Dollop get bigger! 
15. Any cupcake horror stories?
    Oh yeah, plenty of them! The most recent was a morning a couple weeks ago. We had a couple weddings and a bunch of other orders we were preparing for. There were several orders of cupcakes being picked up in about an hour, and I had just finished decorating and boxing them all. My shop is tiny, so I stacked the 8 boxes on the windowsill since there was nowhere else to put them. All of a sudden we hear a giant crash and run out front to see all the boxes and destroyed cupcakes piled on the floor. It was devastating to see all that cupcake waste! Never again have I stacked boxes of cupcakes on the windowsill, though.

Thanks, Heather! Stay tuned for the next Cupcake Baker of the Week. Leave us questions, feedback, and suggestions for future bakers in the comments below, or e-mail Jackie at cupcakestakethecake@gmail.com with the subject "Hey Jackie! Meet this Cupcake Baker!"