Selma natives Mary Caroline Booth and her mother have always wanted to own a store and share their culinary creations with others. This summer, their dream came true when they opened a shop that features cupcakes with hand-piped Big Al’s and cupcakes that resemble peanut butter cups downtown.
Sweets Cupcakes and Cakes opened two months ago, and Booth said business has been great so far.
“We are getting an awesome response from the community,” Booth said. “We love our downtown location. It’s perfect for a local business like ours, and both college students and families can enjoy it.”
The shop’s Facebook page is covered with positive feedback, pictures and announcements from fans and Sweets employees.
Elizabeth Stroecker, a junior majoring in psychology, said her experience at Sweets was just that: “sweet.”
“The girls who work there were so nice, and the cupcake choices were unbelievable,” Stroecker said. “And once they served me the cupcake, it was almost too cute to eat.”
The store is located on Sixth Street and Greensboro Avenue and is open Monday through Thursday from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. and Friday and Saturday from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. They are closed on Sundays.
The store offers a variety of specialty cupcakes like “Crimson Pride,” or a red velvet cupcake with cream cheese icing and hand-decorated with an icing elephant, and “Peanut Butter Cup,” a mix of peanut butter and chocolate cake and icing. There is also a “weekly sweet,” a cupcake that changes weekly, often after customer feedback.
“We used things like our Facebook and Twitter to hear what customers want,” Booth said. “Over the summer, we had a lot of requests for raspberry, so we made a raspberry cupcake.”
Their menu is seasonal, and Booth said they are planning on switching to a fall menu Sept. 23. Sweets encourages community members and students to suggest ideas for cupcakes on their social media page.
In addition to cupcakes, Sweets’ also takes orders for custom cakes and cupcakes. Booth said they are preparing for tailgating season and are busy starting with the first game.
“Also, for each home game, we are making a competitor cupcake,” Booth said. “It broke my heart to decorate other SEC cupcakes though. I hated having to decorate anything for Florida and Auburn.”
Booth and her mother are not the only Alabama fans at Sweets though. Almost every employee at Sweets is a student at the University of Alabama.
“They all have different backgrounds, ranging from a graphic designer who uses her creativity to help us, and we have a student who is culinary school-bound,” Booth said.
Despite the cupcake fad that has hit many towns, including Tuscaloosa’s other cupcake store, Gigi’s, Booth said she and her mother decided to open the store simply to share their product.
“We love our product,” she said. “We want to share our flavor combinations and ideas with our customers.”
Booth’s favorite cupcake is the banana cream pie but said the most popular are the peanut butter cup and Crimson Pride cupcakes.
And because this is a college town, Booth said one of her favorite things on the menu are the shots. The “sweet shots,” that is. The alcohol-free icing shots are unique to Sweets, and as Booth pointed out, sometimes icing is the favorite part of a cupcake.
“This is a college town,” Booth said. “You can’t have a shop without shots here.”
