ORLANDO, Fla. – Sandra Shorter, owner of The Naked Cupcake, started her baking career in a quest to find the “perfect cake.”
“So my quest began to make the perfect vanilla cake and then chocolate cake and then red velvet cake and so on — in the form of a cupcake,” Shorter said. “And that’s kind of the way the naked part started. The naked cake by itself needs to stand on its own.”
At the time, Shorter was working in education and she used her fellow teachers as “guinea pigs.”
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“I did have to require them to give me feedback,” she added.
After refining her cupcake chops in school, in 2016 Shorter took the plunge and bought a food truck off of Craigslist. At the time, the truck was covered in graffiti, but a little love and work turned into the start of The Naked Cupcake. She also gave the truck a name — “Trixie.”
“My gosh, it was such a blur. I remember thinking like, ‘I’m actually going to do this,’” Shorter said. “And we started with Trixie as a way to test the concept and to also gain a following. If it worked, then, you know, the goal was the store.”
Trixie did work and, in fact, she’s still working. Trixie can be found popping up at events around Central Florida. However, Shorter is now also running her own brick-and-mortar store in Orlando’s Lake Nona neighborhood.
“(Lake Nona is) so new and up and coming — a lot of families, really fresh — and I think our brand really goes well with that. So we decided what a better place than Lake Nona, and we were well received so (we’re) excited,” Shorter said.
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In addition to offering up cupcakes and cakes, the Lake Nona location has an event space to host parties and more.
“We have a really good-sized party room to allow for families to come in and do cupcake decorating parties, (we can) also do classes there for ‘Mommy and Me’ or just even like a date night class. So we’re preparing a lot of different activities for that (space),” Shorter said.
Running a bakery would be enough of a challenge for anyone, but when you throw in Trixie and her children to the mix you can see that Shorter has a very full plate. However, Shorter is quick to point out she not doing it all alone.
“Honestly, it’s just like God’s grace is pouring through me and helping me to finish it all and do it all,” she said. “I have an amazing team. I have a really, really amazing team.”
Shorter plans to keep growing the business as well. She said she is looking into buying a second truck in the next year or so.
“We have a lot of requests lately and we want we just don’t like saying no. So, so yeah, we’re kind of everywhere,” Shorter said.
In the latest episode of Florida Foodie, Shorter talks about all things cupcakes and frostings. She also shares stories about the early days with Trixie and how her business managed to flourish during the pandemic.
Please follow our Florida Foodie hosts on social media. You can find Candace Campos on Twitter and Facebook. Lisa Bell is also on Facebook and Twitter and you can check out her children’s book, “Norman the Watchful Gnome.”
Florida Foodie is a bi-weekly podcast from WKMG and Graham Media that takes a closer look at what we eat, how we eat it and the impact that has on us here in Florida and for everyone, everywhere. Find new episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify or wherever you download your favorite podcasts.