The creamiest frosting with the softest cake is what’s on the menu when you visit any of Sacramento’s gourmet cupcake bakeries.

I had my very first gourmet cupcake at Babycakes Bakery on J Street. Personally, I have never been a huge fan of sweets like cakes and cupcakes. However, after tasting a gourmet cupcake, I have to say that I definitely acquired a sweet tooth. If you have never tasted cupcakes from local bakeries like Cupcake Craving and Babycakes, be warned:you could,like me, become addicted.

Kristine Bertram is the owner and operator of Babycakes Bakery. Not only does this bakery specialize in cupcakes, it also does wedding and specialty cakes. Babycakes has been open for a little over a year.

Bertram found her love for baking while she was in college. She went through the culinary program at American River College. Her culinary professor at American River is actually the owner of another gourmet cupcake shop, Tarts and Truffles.

Tarts and Truffles is also located on J Street,but this bakery only handles bulk orders. It’s a great place to buy cupcakes for a birthday party or even a baby shower. Tarts and Truffles, like Babycakes, also specializes in wedding cakes.

After culinary school, Bertram began baking wedding cakes and continued for 10 years until she received a call from a friend who wanted to go into the gourmet cupcake business. She and her business partner purchased the J Street location, which used to be a pizza parlor.

“My brothers and I renovated the whole place; it took us about six weeks,” Bertram said.

After putting in 10 to 14 hours a day, seven days a week, they were able to open their doors in a month and a half after the property was purchased.

Bertram attributes her inspiration for cupcake creativity to her childhood.

“I just think of things that I used to like as a kid,” Bertram said.

When new creations are developed, Bertram and her staff will test them out to see if they are worth selling.

Bertram is also very attentive to what her customers want: “Some of the things we have brought back on the menu, like the Coconut Lime, (were) because we have had so many requests from customers,” she said.

In addition to keeping up with customer demands, Bertram also maintains a revolving menu that changes with the seasons. For the summer, the menu will feature more fruit-filled and lighter cupcakes.

They do have an “everyday” cupcake menu which includes the vanilla vanilla cupcake, the high hat cupcake, Carrot cupcake, and more. The high hat cupcake features a dark chocolate cake with Swiss meringue and a French chocolate shell. The vanilla vanilla is a sour cream and vanilla bean cake with Madagascar vanilla bean butter cream and a marzipan flower.

For Bertram, cupcakes are more fun than wedding cakes because she is able to use her culinary creativity to make new things: “When I am not doing wedding cakes, then I get to have fun and experiment with cupcakes,” she said.

While I was at Babycakes, I sampled the delectable and back-by-popular-demand Coconut Lime cupcake. It was incredible because it was unlike any other cupcake I have ever tasted in my life. It was fresh and light tasting. The cake part was topped with a whipped frosting. For me, just trying this was a stretch because I am a devout chocolate lover, so this was really out of my comfort zone when it came to sweets. However, I quickly became a fan. On top of everything, I don’t even really care for coconut, but this cupcake did not have an overwhelming coconut flavor.

Gordy Cisaeros and Jake Jacobsen are the owners and operators of Cupcake Craving in the Howe Bout Arden shopping center. This little cupcake shop has been in business for about a year and a half. It also has a very interesting story behind it.

Cisaeros and Jacobsen are more than just business partners, they are very good friends. In fact, they have been friends since the third grade.

For Cisaeros, a career in cupcakes came easy. Prior to owning and operating Cupcake Craving, he had been in the culinary world for 25 years. Cisaeros had been a manager at Safeway and baked cakes, breads, cupcakes and many other baked goods. His brother, also a baker, worked at Safeway and Costco but is now a full-time Cupcake Craving employee.

Cisaeros and Jacobsen got the idea of opening a cupcake shop from a friend of theirs who had returned from New York.”He went to New York and went to Magnolia’s Bakery and there was a line around the block,” Cisaeros said. “When he was flying back, he decided that cupcakes are not that hard to do as a business.”

That’s where Cisaeros came in. He helped a friend with recipes and setting up a bakery in Las Vegas. Once it was completed, Cisaeros and Jacobsen decided it was now their turn to make a cupcake shop in Sacramento. “They are really big like Sprinkles down in L.A. Oprah is really into that and she will even bring them (cupcakes) into her audience,” Cisaeros said.

Cisaeros and Jacobsen really make a great team. Jacobsen handles the business and paperwork while Cisaeros takes full charge of the baking with his brother. “I wanted to do some business that was flexible,” Jacobsen said. Jacobsen was a retired UPS employee and came out of retirement when he opened Cupcake Craving.

“I don’t do any of the baking; Gordy and Tony do that all. I pretty much run the office side of things,”Jacobsen said.

Cupcake Craving keeps it simple, only making cupcakes. It has done weddings, but always with cupcakes. Like Babycakes, Cupcake Craving also has a revolving menu with a select few items that remain year-round and a few that are seasonal.

“If someone makes up a flavor they want (made from cupcake), we will do it,” Cisaeros said. Some of the most popular and innovative recipes include, but are not limited to S’more Galore, Red Velvet Rescue, Dulce de Leche, Strawberry Dream, Vanilla Bliss, Funfetti, German Chocolate Wish and Italian Rum Delight.

Cisaeros does have a favorite cupcake.

“I like the Monkey Mania. It’s a banana cupcake with caramel filling and cream cheese icing,” Cisearos said.

Jacobsen enjoys how this business keeps him busy without being overwhelmed. He is still able to spend a lot of time with his family.

“It’s a fun business. Everyone here is in a good mood. It’s easy, and it’s still flexible with my family, which is the biggest thing,” Jacobsen said.

That evening, I took home two of Cupcake Craving’s best-selling cupcakes to sample. I enjoyed the Red Velvet Rescue and the Caramel Delight.

The Red Velvet Rescue was amazing. My favorite part of the cupcake was the frosting because it was thick, almost like ice cream because they had served it chilled. It was a cream cheese frosting, which is my favorite. The nicest part about the cupcake is that it was not overwhelming. The frosting was very sweet and the cake part complemented it because it was not as rich as the frosting.

The Caramel Delight tasted just like its name, a little piece of delight. Rich chocolate cake topped with chocolate and caramel frosting. It was an incredible taste! To top that off, you get a surprise in the middle: a thick caramel filling! For any person who cannot get enough of those little individually wrapped caramel candies, this cupcake is for you.

The interesting thing I found about these gourmet cupcake bakeries is that both are unbelievably delicious while having completely different styles and tastes to their cupcakes.

If you were to venture outside of Sacramento, gourmet cupcakes are still in reach. Icing on the Cupcake is a gourmet cupcake bakery located in Rocklin. Christee Owens is the owner of this store and she agrees that although all of these bakeries serve cupcakes, they greatly differ from one another.

“What we do here is all from scratch. (They’re) my family’s recipes and it is old-school baking,” Owens said.

2007 was the year of the cupcake bakeries because Icing on the Cupcake, like Babycakes and Cupcake Craving, opened about a year and a half ago. In fact, they all opened within a month of each other.

Icing on the Cupcake has a small but efficient staff which includes a graphic designer, a full-time and backup baker and a full-service crew.

For Owens, owning the bakery has really done a lot for her. “Cupcakes have given me the opportunity to be my own boss and they have given me the freedom from being behind the desk,” Owens said.

Owens has always wanted to own her own business and, for this party planner turned business owner, Icing on the Cupcake gives her everything she could ever ask for.

“The cupcakes give me an artistic outlet for creating and plus they’re fun,” she said.

Cozette Roberts can be reached at [email protected]