Latoya Enquist, owner of Silver Creek’s Bake-up Artist, has been baking ever since she can remember. What started as a family tradition has become something much more exciting.
“I just had a little bit of baking in my blood. My mom used to bake all the time and my sisters got into cupcakes,” Enquist said.
Before getting into cupcakes, Enquist said, she was a freelance makeup artist, which helped her hone her creative skills. Using that creative inspiration, she said, she decided to try making cupcakes and found she enjoyed it.
“I took some to a family holiday and was like ‘this is fun!’ so I made more and more and different flavors and designs and stuff,” Enquist said. “Things kind of took off from there.”
Since then, she has made and tested over 200 flavors of cupcake, she said, from basics like chocolate and vanilla to s’mores, churro, piña colada and even jalapeño popper. Sometimes she tests new flavors on customers and sometimes on family. Her husband was particularly fond of jalapeño popper, she said.
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She bakes and decorates the cupcakes from her kitchen at home, she said, then loads them into the trailer where she can keep them refrigerated and stored properly for delivery or on-the-spot sales similar to a food truck. On May 16, for example, she went to the Arbor Care Center in Fullerton.
“I’ve always done it out of my kitchen. My trailer has tables and a fridge. I decided to get the trailer especially for the farmers market,” Enquist said. “In the middle of the summer it can get really hot and I’d have to bring totes, ice packs, frosting would melt, so I needed to come up with a different scenario. Some different events want food trucks and stuff like that.”
As she’s only been trying out the mobile food business for a few months, she said, she’s still establishing her place in town, setting up wherever she is requested or at events like the farmers market downtown or the Eagles Club’s burger nights on Wednesdays.
One of her biggest supporters and one of her toughest critics, she said, has been her sister, Shayla Sharman, who has been a guinea pig and a compatriot in the journey of starting a business.
“I’ve been there from the beginning. She would try different flavors, I would try to give my opinion, watch as her business continued to grow, give her some advice,” Sharman said. “Just trying to help her along and give help where she needed it.”
Sharman, who has been working to open a business with her husband for several months as well, said doing it at the same time as each other has been a great experience as they go through similar stages of the experience.
“I think it’s pretty awesome, we just support each other. We have two completely different businesses but we’re always there for each other when we need it or need to bounce ideas off of each other,” Sharman said.
What makes Enquist’s cupcakes special, Sharman said, is the variety. With 200 flavors under her belt, some of them with a surprise filling in them, Sharman said, she’s sure to have a flavor most everyone will like. Her favorite so far is white chocolate raspberry.
“It’s the amount of different flavors she has made or can make from classics to funky and anywhere in between,” Sharman said. “She sets main flavors, she has 22 main flavors she tries to stick to and adds something different.”
Enquist said that she has gotten some requests for delivery with her trailer, which she can do now in some areas. She has also gotten requests to bring the trailer to locations and park like a food truck. What makes her cupcakes so special, she said, is not just the flavor, but what’s inside the cake part of the cupcake.
“I have fillings in probably 90% of my cupcakes. People are thrilled when they get a little extra in their cupcakes,” Enquist said.
