NEW BERN — After winning the Food Network’s “Cupcake Wars” and building a large clientele in the area, New Bern’s cupcake lady, Nicole Costas of The Wild Cupcake, is leaving town.
It’s nothing personal, she insists: her husband, Andre, is a Marine who is being reassigned to recruiting duty in Amarillo, Texas. She has hopes of returning to the New Bern area to renew and build her business down the road — maybe in three years.
Costas, who bakes her famous pastries in her home and then distributes them to shops and homes across the area, began her business in April of 2011. She first drew public attention when she traveled to California to compete in the “Cupcake Wars” program in August.
The show is hosted by Justin Willman with a panel of three judges — two permanent and one guest. Cupcake bakers and their assistants compete in studio kitchens, baking various cupcakes employing specific ingredients and themes decided on by the show’s producers.
According to the network website, “Four of the country’s top cupcake bakers” are chosen, baking in three rounds. After each round, judges eliminate one contestant. The final round includes baking a large number of cupcakes and presenting them on specifically-designed displays. The final winner is chosen on a basis of both presentation and taste.
Costas won handily (one contestant complained during the program that, in the judge’s eyes, Costas couldn’t do wrong), but had to keep mum about her victory for several weeks until the show aired in October.
“It was hideous,” she said of the wait.
She still communicates occasionally with a couple of her fellow competitors on Facebook, and notes that even the runners-up have gained local fame and business from their competition on the show.
“The quality of my life has changed,” she said of show’s results. She is busy, working as much as 70 or more hours a week. Much of her social time, she laughs, takes place while delivering cupcakes. “I just do what I like to do.”
Nicole says that leaving New Bern is a major disappointment. “I’m ready to take it to the next level,” she said. She had been eyeing local storefronts with the idea of establishing a “pasteatery” (that’s baker talk for an upscale, sit-down bakery). “I want my cupcakes to be the catalyst” for bigger things, she said.
She’s even thought of moving, one day, into wedding cake creations.
“The Life is Good store is open,” she said and, had the Texas move come up, she would have considered leasing it. “I feel like I’m being stripped of my dignity.”
Not that she’s complaining about her husband.
“We’re really close,” she said of him.
On top of that, he’s a great helper who one day surprised her by ordering his own jacket lettered “The Wild Cupcake Team.”
“He’s my biggest fan,” she said. Andre agreed, stating that he sees himself both now and down the road assisting her with her business.
As to Texas? On the upside, there is family there.
“I’m Texan, born and raised,” she said.
On the downside, she is uncertain what she will do there. Recent business laws in the Lone Star state make a business run out of the kitchen awkward at best. Among her considerations is to keep up something of an online business — though she doesn’t know if she could keep up with the resulting volume.
She says she may work at a local business and save money toward building her Wild Cupcake down the road (hopefully returning to the New Bern area to do so). She’s also considered writing a book.
“I don’t know what kind of book,” she added, but she has always dabbled in writing and currently keeps a blog on her company website.
“I’m kind of a cross between Chelsea Handler and Martha Stewart,” she suggested of her style.
In any case, “I hope the (new) community is as welcoming as New Bern has been.”
Though she looks forward to seeing what will unfold for her and Andre and the family, for Nicole Costas and the Wild Cupcake, the move is definitely disappointing.
“I’ve worked two years,” she said of her business in New Bern, where she has lived for nine years. “I feel like, for me, was this all for naught? Was there a point? But there has to be. There’s a point for everything. I look forward to seeing how this turns out.”