When the eatery she used to work in got shut down during COVID, Stephanie Paras wondered if she should pick up her baking skills. It had been a while since she finished a two-year pastry arts program in the Philippines.
But Paras thought of her favourite ube cake all the time.
“In the Philippines, ube, which is the purple yam, is a very popular dessert. I grew up with that cake. It reminds me of my childhood,” says Paras. “When I make cupcakes, I’d think of the memories I had with each flavour. It makes the process more personal.”
Now a proud owner of a small cupcake business, Paras sees baking and decorating cakes as more of an escape from the daily hustle than a job. She never gets tired of decorating a whole batch of cupcakes under the same theme or of the same colour palette. “It’s so soothing, to control the sweet and smooth buttercream all over the cakes. I can never get tired of it,” says the artist.
Paras is not afraid of using colours on her cakes. If anything, I’d call them “Everything Cupcakes;” the edible decoration details and layers of icing on a single piece of cupcake is astonishing.
For a one-woman bakery, Cupcake Mama sure has a long list of flavours for custom orders; including signature flavours like Mango Loco and Salted Caramel Biscoff. It also rotates nine special flavours every Tuesday.
Shop small-batch handmade cupcakes and custom-made cakes at Cupcake Mama.
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