Coconut-stuffed dates, Springerle cookies, Divinity, Buckeyes, Rock Candy suckers, caramels, fudge and taffy flood the kitchen. An oversized brown paper notebook sits open on the edge of the counter, covered in a mishmash of taped down snippets from the cut out backs of boxes and torn newspapers.
In the midst of it all, two figures are carefully soaking cherries in Brandy to make the adult chocolate cordials. Looking up at her grandma, Melynda Harjes knew that this tradition of candy making was more than habit, it was passion for her Granny because that’s the only reason a farm-wife and mother from the Depression era would spent so much money on butter, chocolate, nuts and dried fruit to craft what spread across the kitchen, later to spill out onto the back porch to keep cold when the fridge filled up.
Those little bits of brown paper, that filled up her scrapbooked recipe book, would forever carry a memory of Granny for her granddaughter, even after she passed.
“Occasionally, when I’m in and out of my kitchen cupboards or digging for something, I’ll find a random piece of paper with chicken-scratch writing on brown paper. I will always recognize her handwriting. It’s like this little note that just waifs down as if to say, ‘Don’t forget these memories,’” Harjes said.
And she hasn’t forgotten. Instead, that childhood memory of making candies from Thanksgiving till Christmas Eve lend into a life of baking.
“I’ve been baking forever. I can’t remember NOT knowing how to bake,” Harjes said.
That affinity for baking naturally led into baking for friends and family, which led into more requests that became orders. An underground bakery grew too quick, and Harjes realized that it was a decision point: quit this or get serious.
So in the May 0f 2015, she got a commercial kitchen the easiest way, the most cost-effective way. With a food truck.
Photo credit to Anna Ligocki Photography.
“The cupcake truck, aka “The Cupcake Chariot” was really born out of necessity… The most cost-effective option, a commercial kitchen and retail space combined, was my big, yellow bakery-on-wheels.”
Just as it had happened when she was baking ‘underground’ soon customers wanted to be able to find the cupcakes year round, not only for the warm season events where the Chariot can be found. So, Uptown Girl Cupcakes’ brick-and-mortar location was the next step in February of 2016.
Photo credit to Anna Ligocki Photography.
Now, in their downtown White Bear Lake location, Harjes creates over 50 different cupcake recipes on rotation and via request. The driving force for a lot of their recipes is whats available fresh and in the best quality.
“It’s all about putting out the best tasting cupcake we can make. I can’t compete with the prices of a mass-produced, chemically-fortified big-box bakery. I can’t do it and I wouldn’t want to do it,” she said. “Instead, we use the best ingredients we can find make the taste worth the extra cost. Good cake is not cheap; cheap cake is not good.”
So, using the seasons and customer feedback, Harjes has created a multitude of recipes of which 10-12 are prepared fresh and featured daily, what those recipes are each day, is up to two factors.
Photo credit to Anna Ligocki Photography.
“Some of it is inspiration and some of it is practicality. We always have Peanut Butter Cup, Triple Vanilla and Death By Chocolate on the menu… But we also look at the seasonal items we have available to us and feels right for the time of year. You’ll see strawberries on the counter from May until around August. Big fat blueberries will be around from the early to mid-summer…”
Working with fresh fruit is a particular area of interest for those at Uptown Girl.
“We LOVE working with fresh fruit. It can be tricky sometimes when you’re trying to keep everything fresh and plump, but the payoff is so worth it,” Harjes said.
To support their adoration of fresh produce, Uptown Girl has exclusive access to a private apple orchard with three different varieties, and this year, Harjes hopes to establish her own orchard. For now, much of their other fruit comes from a Stillwater farmer, though she’s looking into sources for other fruits constantly.
Besides fruits and the classics, their recipes feature customer cravings like a beer and pretzel cupcake with a beer batter, fudge insides, and a caramelized stout buttercream or the Farm Girl cupcake with sweet corn cake and a honey swiss meringue buttercream.
For Valentine’s Day, they’ll be featuring a Red Hot Velvet with cinnamon Schnapps and cayenne in the cake and cream cheese frosting to cut the spice on top.
In the future, Harjes hopes to possibly expand given the golden opportunity to a location in Saint Paul.
“I am a risk-taker at heart, my husband is not. So we’ll see,” she said.
Photo credit to Anna Ligocki Photography.
For the time being, Uptown Girl Cupcakes is at home in White Bear Lake, and while they might not be making heaps and heaps of candy, I think that Granny would see the passionate paralells between her Brandy-soaked cherries and Harjes’s buttercream-topped cupcakes.
