While in San Diego, California, our Seattle-based stringer ELD Images and his wife Muffin D’Amour
had a chance to visit Heavenly Cupcake, located on Sixth Avenue in the
heart of the bustling Gaslamp District. They caught up with Jill Reilly, the co-owner, and her baking manager,
Alex, to learn more about the story behind Heavenly Cupcake.
A former graphic designer, Jill
purchased Heavenly about a year ago, as a sister business to her Cute Cakes Shop, which opened in 2010. Since
acquiring Heavenly, Jill, her husband Dave, and Alex, have worked tirelessly to
raise the quality and consistency of the products at Heavenly, as well as the
shop’s reputation, which suffered prior to the change of ownership. The steady stream of customers we saw during
our visit is a testament to their success.
For Jill, baking has been a
lifelong passion, a gift from her grandmother that she has almost taken for
granted. One of her most poignant
moments, however, was when she made a birthday cake for a customer’s child, and
the mother was overcome by emotion. Jill
was initially worried that the mother’s tears were angry, when in fact, they
reflected the fact that she was able to give her daughter something she never
received growing up. At that moment,
Jill realized that the baking knowledge and skills she took for granted really
could bring joy and meaning beyond the flour and sugar. She knew – at that moment – that this was her
career calling.
Baked fresh daily, Heavenly’s
cupcakes often draw upon recipes from Jill’s childhood and southern heritage,
giving them a more homemade taste than other cupcakes we’ve had. She’s also not afraid to take some chances
with flavors (e.g. the All-American BBQ) and textures (the actual Oreo
cookie inside the cookies & cream).
Cookies and cream.
Heavenly Cupcake has eleven
employees, and all of those we spoke with were friendly, engaging, and clearly
had a passion for what they do. They
were also very receptive to feedback, not only from us, but also from their
local customers. Heavenly hosts regular
tasting parties – at least once a month – where the first 250 customers get a
tasting plate of three mini cupcakes and vote on the one to be added to the
regular roster, which currently stands at twenty-seven flavors, sixteen to eighteen of which are
available every day. We sampled fifteen
cupcakes, including three of the experimental cakes being auditioned for
permanent resident status.
Without exception, every cupcake
sampled was quite tasty, even those that aren’t normally among the favorites,
but here are a few of the highlights. Strawberry lime margarita has tequila in the
cake, but it served mainly to keep it moist, rather than imparting a strong
flavor. The vanilla butter cream
frosting had a hint of lime. The
strawberry cake was fruity and moist. The pink fondant straw added a clever touch.
Strawberry lime margarita.
Strawberry lime margarita.
The key lime pie was another
great cake. The graham cracker bottom
supported a moist lime cake. A touch of
Florida, without the humidity.
Key lime pie.
Key lime pie.
The pumpkin cupcake featured a pumpkin
spice cake, replete with the expected flavors of fall, frosted by a cream
cheese spice, and topped with a maple leaf. O Canada!
Pumpkin.
Pumpkin.
Marble and Thin Mint were two
more favorites. Marble was vanilla and
chocolate swirl cake, topped with dark and milk chocolate frosting, while Thin
Mint featured a moist dark chocolate cake with mint flavoring, serving as a
vehicle for mint butter cream frosting and garnished by an actual Thin Mint
cookie.
Marble
Salted caramel and Thin Mint.
Marble
Salted caramel and Thin Mint.
All-American BBQ and Chocolate Cherry
Coke were the other two experimental cakes for the month. The All-American is a vanilla cake with a
hint of barbecue sauce. Not apparent was
the sweet corn in the frosting. The
vanilla frosting had barbecue drizzle and patriotic sprinkles. This one probably was the furthest off the
cupcake grid, but quite good. Chocolate
Cherry Coke had a chocolate liner, perhaps laced with cola, and featured cherry
whipped cream topping and pie-filling cherry.
All-American BBQ.
Chocolate Cherry Coke.
All-American BBQ.
Chocolate Cherry Coke.
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