Co-owner Vicky Garnett opened the shop in April 2013 with Sandy McMillan.[/caption]

Vicky Garnett and her friend Sandy McMillan both love baking. The pair met through their children, who attend Katy-area schools together.

In 2013, the two came up with an idea—to open a cupcake shop.

“We were both into baking, enjoyed cooking,” said Garnett, a native of Scotland. “We were ready for a new venture. Both of us were looking for something new to do.”

The urge to explore a new passion led to the creation in April 2013 of Cupcakes Etcetera, a gourmet bakery in the South Park at Cinco Ranch shopping center.

The shop primarily features gourmet cupcakes—13 different flavors are produced daily—but also has other baked goods like mini-cupcakes, cupcakes in a jar, cake pops, cake push-ups and smash cakes.

“Everything is made fresh every day,” Garnett said. “We typically come in around 6:30 a.m.”

She said it takes “a good four hours” to make 24 cupcakes in the 13 different flavors. Only one flavor—“She Wore Pink Velvet”—is made daily. The other twelve flavors rotate on a daily basis and include Cocoa Nilla, Vanilla Cloud, Lemon Drop Moon and dozens of other concoctions.

“We also do mini-cupcakes in any of our flavors,” she said.

Prices for the baked goods range from $2.50 for cake pops to $3.50 for cupcakes. Specialty orders can be arranged with Garnett or McMillan for events such as birthday parties, weddings, corporate events or school fundraising.

Garnett said being a part of the community of Cinco Ranch and Katy is important for her and McMillan, which has led the two to help with charity events at local elementary schools.

“We’ll donate 20 percent of our daily sales to the schools,” she said of the special charity events.

Neither McMillan nor Garnett has formal culinary training, but they do employ a part-time baker who went to culinary school. There are four other part-timer employees who help with the shop.

Garnett said the hard work has its rewards—among them seeing smiles on customer’s faces.

“That’s the best part of it, everybody is happy when [they] get a cupcake,” Garnett said. “We don’t have a whole lot of grumpy customers. That’s the whole fun of it. We have a lot of regular customers.