An Anonymous quote once stated, “My soul has had enough chicken soup, now it wants cupcakes.” Sometimes, nothing hits the spot like a batch of cupcakes made with love, that even the baker feels a wave of happiness wash away any negativity once they see their efforts consumed with such pleasure.Take Sevan Vartanian, who leads a high powered, highly stressful, position by day. At heart, she is simply a baker who wishes to be, loving to surround herself in her designated corner in the family kitchen, being one with her ingredients. Her story with her famous ‘LuvCakes’ is one of inspiring passion, driven by her search for a release from life’s daily pressures.
According to Sevan, her passionate affair with baking stems from her mother’s love for cooking. She states, “In our house, we love to cook and bake. During the weekends, my mother and I are always in the kitchen.” She kids, “We don’t have lives like that.” Before embarking on her journey towards cupcake heaven, Sevan was the cookie savant. “I’ve perfected the art of baking the immaculate cookie. With an increasing amount of stress in my life, I just came home one day and decided that’s it! I had to let this stress out. I simply started baking, wishing to do something different. Then I thought to myself, why not cupcakes?” A meticulously careful person by nature, Sevan spent her time researching different recipes in her family’s ‘recipe book room’ as she likes to call it, “It’s basically a room filled with recipe books. Literally!” Upon finding recipes she liked and taking her mother’s advice, she entered the kitchen to see how she would fare with her first attempt at cupcakes.
She recounts the very first LuvCakes, “My first batch included chocolate and vanilla cupcakes, and of course the topping was horribly executed. I didn’t know anything about cupcakes, let alone frosting, yet I felt keen on giving it a go.” Taking her time to execute the whole process from scratch, Sevan rushed to her brother, a foodie like herself, to try them out. “What surprised me was his facial expression when he first tried them. The smile of pleasure that came across his face was the first sign that I was on the right path.”
She excitedly returned to the kitchen, eager to try out different flavors. Taking that special smile on her brother’s face as a sign of encouragement, Sevan ventured to develop orange cupcakes, created a special vanilla orange frosting, cinnamon and apple cupcakes. Ever since that first day when she stressfully entered the kitchen looking for an answer, she made cupcakes a therapeutic ritual. She states, “I would bake for 2-3 hours every Saturday for a continuous period of a year and half. Whenever I baked, I took the cupcakes to the office the following day. Now, my colleagues expect my cupcakes every Sunday. My friends recommended that I start my own business, and now that is my dream; a small bakery where I make my cupcakes and cookies. I wouldn’t want anything too grand, just a small place where I can pursue my passion.”
For Sevan, the process of perfecting her LuvCakes didn’t happen instantaneously, it required a lengthy period of experimentation. She states, “My friends and family are like my guinea pigs, they kept trying all the different cupcakes I’d make and give me their recommendations. These would include making them moister, adjusting the sweetness of the frosting, or the size of the cake. So one can say that I have perfected these LuvCakes after an extended period of experimentation.” She knew she was on the right track whenever she saw the look she once saw on her brother’s face when he first tried the cupcakes. She adds, “I knew that when I’d see that same look, that same facial expression, that I’d have done it.”
Always eager to perfect her recipes out of her passion for this hobby, the biggest challenge for Sevan was achieving the perfect red velvet recipe. She laughingly states, “The first time I tried it, it turned brown, the second time the frosting was horrible. It took me about ten attempts to get it right! But because I LOVE what I do, I never stopped trying. Eventually, I came up with my own trick for the cheese frosting; now I make THE red velvet cupcake. ”
Stemming from her innate characteristic of always trying to make people happy, Sevan finds great joy and pleasure in having someone’s day turn around after trying her cupcakes. For Sevan, choosing the name, The LuvCakes, signified her whole goal of baking; what started as a form of stress release for her also helped others. She concludes,“the happiness I see on people’s faces made me happy!” Try any one of Sevan’s delicious LuvCakes, choose from vanilla, double chocolate, vanilla chocolate, red velvet, apple cinnamon, lemon, orange, or coconut and toffee frosting.
To order a batch of Sevan’s famous LuvCakes, please visit Facebook.com: TheLuvcakes.
