Interview Cravin' Cupcakes
Cravin' Cupcakes is a bespoke cakes and sweet treats company. The company is the mastermind of husband and wife team Luke and Jamie-Lee. Their imaginative creations include cookie monster fudge, sweet munchy boxes and the best brownies we have ever tasted!
BeautyTies: Hi there Luke & Jamie-Lee. Your business is amazing. Whose idea was it to start the business?
Cravin' Cupcakes: Hello! Thank you for allowing us to answer your questions! Luke came up with the idea. We both have over 30 years catering experience between us and one day Luke was working in the kitchen and decided to make some cupcakes as a special! He came home that night and said "Why aren't we doing this for ourselves? Why are we making money for other people?" So on the aprons went, and into our kitchen, we began to bake!
BeautyTies: Who does the baking and who does the decorating
Jamie-Lee: Luke does the baking! Thank goodness! I tried once and they did not turn out ok haha! We make a good team with him baking and me decorating. We started off by watching lots of YouTube clips of people in America as we like their bold flavours! We then baked off our own versions, tweaking as we go. The ideas come from baking something and saying "ooh maybe we should try this" or "ooh I wonder if people would like this!" We are both foodies and love our desserts so we are always striving to try new things.
BeautyTies:Do your children like to bake too? We know the youngest in our house has always loved baking.
Cravin' Cupcakes: To be honest we are more of the outdoorsy type so spend a lot of our days on adventures and bear hunts (not the real kind) together rather than in the kitchen. They are curious though and like to come downstairs to see new cakes on the counter but as its a business we can't allow them to help us - health and safety and all that! One day though, when they get a bit older, we would love to show them the ropes - who knows.... they might come up with better ideas than us!
BeautyTies: Lockdown has been tough on everyone this year. How has business been?
Cravin' Cupcakes: Lockdown has been very difficult for everyone and it has been an extremely uncertain time for a lot of businesses. We were fortunate enough to already have a 5* hygiene rating so we continued to work from home. Business was surprisingly really good... lots of people ordering gifts to be posted out to loved ones all over the UK. We've gained lots of new followers, set up a website, took on lots of new orders and Luke now works with me full time.
BeautyTies: You have a beautiful family. How have you been juggling work and keeping the children occupied?
Cravin' Cupcakes: We work at night! The twins go to bed at 6pm and that's when we start baking. We didn't think it would be fair to spend our days in the kitchen and wouldn't want to risk any sticky hands in the orders haha! It has been tiring, sometimes we wouldn't finish until 2am and we would be back up again at 6am, but they start school on Monday so we have lots of time to enjoy 'normal' working hours again.
BeautyTies: If you could have three wishes, what would they be?
Luke :1) our own shop 2) triumph motorbike 3) massive motor home to tour the country.
Jamie : 1) our own premises 2) a money tree that you pick from and it grows back instantly 3) Health and Happiness for the family.
BeautyTies: Do you have any advice for people wanting to start their own business?
BeautyTies: What does a typical day look like for you both?
BeautyTies: We saw your graze boxes. Which one of you geniuses came up with that idea?
BeautyTies: How did you decide what to put in the graze boxes? The Cookie Monster theme was amazing!
Cravin' Cupcakes: Someone asked me to bake a birthday present for their friend but they couldn't decide what to choose from... I decided to make them a graze box so they could try a bit of everything! We then started to come up with different themes for different occasions (hence the cookie monster graze box that your daughter loves!)
BeautyTies:Do you ever get any strange requests?
Cravin' Cupcakes: We've made 'Happy Boob Day' Cupcakes for someone celebrating her boob job! We've also made 'Divorce' Cupcakes which I had far too much fun designing!
BeautyTies: Who inspires you the most?
Cravin' Cupcakes: Cupcake Jemma is a huge inspiration for us. We followed her YouTube channel a lot in our early days as she does a lot of tutorials live. We definitely want to be in her shoes in a couple of years time!
BeautyTies: What did you both want to be when you were younger?
Cravin' Cupcakes: Luke wanted to be a mounted police officer and I wanted to be a Singer or an Actress. Its safe to say, we are far from these job roles now haha!
BeautyTies: Luke, people may recognise you as being the winner of Big Brother 2012. How was that for you? What impact had it made on your life?
Luke: People definitely wouldn't recognise me now, thankfully! It had an impact on my life in a positive way... I met Jamie from her watching my series and then the twins came along!
BeautyTies: What’s been the hardest thing you have faced, owning this business?
Cravin' Cupcakes: I'd say the hardest part is when people collect or receive their order. We still get nervous for every single order that goes out, whether the customer will like it. I guess if we didn't care, we would have a problem!
BeautyTies: What is your favourite place in the world to be and why?
Luke :As cheesy as it sounds, at home with the family. (Although the Maldives and Cape Town come pretty close, maybe we can take the twins there one day) "
Jamie : I'm going to really boring here and say the same as Luke! (On all 3 places haha!)
BeautyTies: If you could change anything in this world, what would it be?
Cravin' Cupcakes: There would be no douchebags and everyone would be kind (or at least civil) to each other.
BeautyTies:If you had a choice to create something for anyone in the world, who would it be and what would you create for them?
BeautyTies: Where do you see the company going in the future
BeautyTies: What are your favourite items to eat out of everything you make?
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Website:/https://www.cravincupcakes.com/
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