Shop crafts custom cupcakes to please patrons palates

It all starts with the flour – hundreds of pounds of it.

Combine the flour with a number of other ingredients, place it into an oven and a few minutes later Melissa Petsch, the owner of Colleyville-based LeSara Cupcake & Sweet Bar, has a batch of cupcakes, the foundation of her business.

"We have five basic flavors of cupcakes we make every day," Petsch said. "Then we also have a monthly flavor, a daily flavor and a fun flavor. So we have about eight flavors every day."

LeSara aims to stand apart from other cupcake shops: When a customer comes in, he or she does not pick a premade cupcake that is already frosted and decorated. The customer starts at the flavor of the cake and can customize it anyway he or she likes.

"We're different than the rest; we're almost like a yogurt shop. So you come in, the cupcakes are not frosted and you get to pick from anywhere out of 15 to 18 different frostings and mix and match.

We also have about 30 different toppings, so you can choose whatever you want instead of walking into a cupcake shop and getting a premade chocolate with chocolate sprinkles cupcake. Maybe you like chocolate with salted caramel. You can make it the way you want it."

LeSara can do it all: vanilla frosting with gummy bears on top or a strawberry cupcake with three different types of frosting and peanut butter cups in the middle — the sky is the limit.

After two years of business, Petsch employs six people to bake the cupcakes fresh, daily, and to also help create the cakeballs and cakepops that are also made in-house.

In addition to walk-in customers, Petsch also spends time each day on special orders.

"We can accommodate just about any dietary restriction whether it's vegan or dairy-free. We also have a huge gluten-free base. We can do it for just about every flavor.

We also have people that order cupcakes for special events such as birthdays, weddings, baby showers, graduations and corporate meetings," she said. "People have ordered cupcakes and cakes for just about any event you could think of."

Should you not be able to decide on a flavor you might enjoy, you can special-order about 70 premade flavor pairings to suit just about any palate, such as Banana Streusel (brown sugar banana cake topped with cinnamon streusel crumble and brown sugar buttercream frosting) and The Fluffernutter (peanut butter banana cake with marshmallow fluff filling topped with peanut butter buttercream frosting).

LeSara Cupcake & Sweet Bar

5615 Colleyville Blvd, Ste. 420. Colleyville, 817-581-1999, www.lesaracupcakebar.com

Hours: Tue.-Fri. 11 a.m. to 5 p.m., Sat. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m., Closed Sun. and Mon.