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Ooh La La Cupcakes is a boutique cupcake bakery in and around Victoria, BC.  I caught up with owner, Sherryl Andrews, to talk most popular cupcake flavours, Star Wars themes and cakes that look like puppies.

So cupcakes, we’ve been in the midst of a cupcake craze for a while now, but Ooh La La almost anticipated that craze and was one of the first cupcake stores in the area. What enticed you to start a cupcake bakery?
We were the first in town! We opened July 2008. The reason I chose cupcakes….was simply as you stated…there were none in town at that time and since every other city seemed to have one I thought it was time for Victoria to take the leap. However, knowing that Victorians are real “foodies” we knew we could not just make any old cupcakes. So, we decided to make the best product we could from the best ingredients we could find. Four years later we have not compromised on that decision.

You can only eat one and only one flavour cupcake for the next year, what do you choose?I often eat the “Monkey Business” which is a wonderful, moist, old-fashioned banana cake chocked full of bananas and a little special ingredient that just brings out all of the rich flavours. It’s topped with our cream cheese buttercream and it’s a great treat any time of the day or week!

What’s your best selling cupcake?
Our best selling cupcake is the “Triple Bypass” which is a rich moist brownie with a caramel filling, topped with our caramel buttercream, sprinkled with Skor bits and drizzled with yet more caramel.

What’s been your craziest cupcake flavour?
Some people think our “Maple Bacon” cupcake is the craziest, but it’s just like eating pancakes and bacon. The cake is made with real maple syrup, topped with a maple buttercream and sprinkled with candied bacon.

Is it just cupcakes, or is it other cakes too?
The majority of our business is cupcakes, of course. But we’re also known for our wonderful celebration and wedding cakes. Our talented baking team make the most delicious cake and buttercream in town and our pastry chef Bonny makes your delicious cake into just about any theme you could imagine. You dream it and we’ll make it!

What’s been your most stand out cake design?
There have been so many that it is difficult to pick one. Check out Facebook for some pics of some of our cakes. We’ll be doing our largest wedding cake this summer which is to be a six-seven tiered cake, so that will be an exciting challenge. One celebration cake comes to mind that we made in the shape of a customer’s special pet dog. It looked so real that when my husband showed pictures of it to people, they thought we had just adopted a new puppy!

If you could design a cake for any special occasion, what occasion would that be and what would you be baking?
We love all cakes and all occasions so it is almost impossible to choose one. Our pastry chef’s favourite theme is Star Wars anything!

Do you tend to buy new, used or a mixture of both?
We have a mixture of both for sure. Some of our equipment is used and much of our build outs in our stores was done with repurposed cabinets that were stripped down, repainted, adorned with beautiful mouldings and glass and mirrors etc.

What been your best used find?
Our faithful dishwasher at our Hillside shop. It’s still going strong after four years of hard labour.

Are you looking for anything used at the moment?
Not at this very moment but I am sure we will be in the near future.

Got a favourite cupcakery? Does your baker bake it best? Tell us about it!