Jennifer Anglin's cupcake kitchen is like Santa's magic cavern with its black walls, shiny benches and shelves filled with sparkling equipment and jars of brightly coloured sprinkles.
About a year ago, she converted half her double garage into a commercial kitchen so she could produce cupcakes to order, something she had dreamed of doing for a while.
Cupcakes make people smile and she likes making people happy, she says.
Cupcakes were originally an American treat for children - although in New Zealand we had something similar in butterfly cakes - but in the past five years or so a craze for these little cakes with fancy toppings has overtaken much of the world.
Mrs Anglin, who is from Texas, makes US-style cakes, which she says are spongier and softer than most Kiwi equivalents.
One of the secrets to a light, spongy cake is aerating the butter and cream until it's fluffy and light, and sifting the flour six times, she says.
She also reveals she makes her own butter from cream, and blends her own cake flour from soft flour and cornflour.
"For me the cupcake has to be moist and not dry, and the crowning jewel is the frosting. It requires all those things to make it a good cupcake. Sometimes you can have fabulous frosting and awful cake; sometimes it can look incredibly beautiful and taste just like cardboard. It can't be just pretty; it has to be delicious, a complete sensory experience."
She has developed a range of flavours, including one called "Dunedin", which has a variety of chocolates in the cake and a cappuccino buttercream frosting.
Vanilla is often the hardest to get right, she says.
On her last trip back to the US she tasted as many vanilla cupcakes from different producers as she could find -"yes it's a thankless job, but someone had to do it!" she says with a laugh.
Mrs Anglin has been coming to New Zealand regularly for nearly 30 years, first with her parents because her brother went to Tihoi Venture School, near Hamilton, and more recently with her husband.
They decided to move here after 9/ll when the world became a different place, she says.
"We were visiting Dunedin for our wedding anniversary and we were sitting in Nova. The city hall bells rang at 3pm and a few minutes later down the street came all these children without parents with them, and they were happy. I thought. 'I really want that for our daughter'. The US is very paranoid without realising it."
Her husband is an IT specialist, so they could live anywhere in the world and chose Dunedin, she says.
"It's small enough to run into people you know everywhere, but big enough so there's a dynamic to it. There are festivals and the university keeps the city hopping. I love the arts festival and can't wait for that to start again."
She did a master's in entrepreneurship at the University of Otago, and opened the cupcake business about a year ago.
Word has spread about her website, from which people can order cupcakes that she bakes and delivers daily.
She also runs a small hands-on cooking school in her house.
In January, she taught 10- to 15-year-olds cooking and found that adults also wanted to learn, so she ran a course called "Just like Julia only easier", at which people cooked classic French dishes, she said.
She has always loved cooking - something she attributes to the influence of both her grandmother and a cook her family had when she was a child.
Although she owned a children's bookstore for 10 years in the US, she often catered for friends and she goes to cooking schools whenever she travels, she says.
Cake fever
Drool over cupcakes at www.dunedincupcake.co.nz or order at (027) 464-0127
