For Duke junior Pooja Mehta, a sweet idea to transform the everyday cupcake turned into a popular business.
In the summer of 2014, Mehta launched Cupcake Remake, a self-run company that produces mason jars filled with alternating layers of cake and icing. These cupcakes quickly became a popular product among students and have been sold individually, as well as to clubs on campus for fundraising events. Due to the cupcakes’ success, Mehta has now partnered with Ninth Street Bakery to sell her products.
“I’ve always been fascinated by entrepreneurs,” she said. “I’ve never thought I would be someone like that.”
Mehta's idea for Cupcake Remake originated when she worked at a bakery last summer and noticed how easily cupcakes could lose their pleasant appearance, she explained.
“The biggest challenge was maintaining the aesthetic,” she said, “So I thought, why not revolutionize the cupcake?”
Customers sign up for Mehta’s cupcakes through Cupcake Remake’s Facebook page on which Mehta posts order forms. Each jar costs $5, though she sells them for $3.50 to student groups—such as GlobeMed and Harmonies for Health—who can then resell them at fundraisers.
She said sales first took off during sororities’ big-little week—the time when an older sister is paired with a new member and leaves the new member gifts each day before revealing her identity—when many girls purchased the cupcakes for their littles. Since then, she has been completing orders for students and has become a regular vendor at Ninth Street Bakery, a deal she arranged after showing the owner pictures of her products.
As the only person involved in the business right now, Mehta has her hands full.
She makes her products in her Central Campus apartment kitchen during the school year, using fresh ingredients from local farmers’ markets and mason jars from Walmart, she said. She typically makes batches of 16 at a time—which takes about 45 minutes—but often makes more than 100 on weekends to complete orders.
Junior Elizabeth Kim, vice president of Harmonies for Health—a music therapy non-profit that serves people suffering from injuries and isolation—said Mehta’s cupcakes were a huge success at her organization’s fundraiser in the Bryan Center, noting that the cupcakes’ appearance attracted passersby.
“Pooja was awesome and very professional,” Kim said. “She created a custom green tea flavor for us and decorated the jars with our logo.”
Mehta explained that she also decorates the jars upon request for special occasions such as birthdays and Valentine’s Day. She said her most popular flavor by far is red velvet, although she recently released a carrot cake flavor that has received rave reviews.
Jeremy Gonzales, a junior and frequent customer of Cupcake Remake, said he thinks the business has been successful because of Mehta’s advertising as well as her superior product.
“It’s delicious, and it’s a good serving size,” he said. “The mason jars make it more travel-friendly.”
Mehta’s biggest challenge has been balancing her time between Cupcake Remake and her schoolwork, she said. The business has become large enough that she sometimes struggles to run it herself, she explained, adding that she would like to involve more people.
Despite the time commitment, she hopes to one day expand her business in the form of a food truck or a retail store, although maintaining the integrity of the product is crucial to her, she added.
Mehta said the popularity of the business on campus has taken her by surprise.
“It started off as just a hobby,” she said. “I didn’t realize how big it would become.”
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