The Comeback Story of Clairemont’s Queen of Cupcakes

For Clairemont resident Mary Sarain, her love affair with baking began as a little girl when she made her first cake with an Easy-Bake Oven (a miniature toy oven that baked cakes with a glorified lightbulb). That seven-year-old little girl had no idea she would someday end up on national television in a competition where she would win the grand prize for her cupcake creations, and eventually open a wildly popular cupcake shop in Pacific Beach called PURE Cupcakes.

Despite the glory of national accolades, Mary’s quest to be San Diego’s go-to bakery source has been about as smooth as the Belmont roller coaster. And like that roller coaster, she’s had highs and she’s had lows. This is her story.

The Baking Journey

While the Easy-Bake Oven may have just been a toy, it was when Mary first felt a sense of euphoria from baking. Her desire to continue baking grew just as the mixes that came with the oven ran out. While she wishes she could say her mom taught her everything, that wasn’t the case. Mary jokes as she puts her thumb and forefinger about an inch apart to signify how high a loaf of bread baked by her mom would rise.

Fortunately, Mary’s Aunt Millie, who lived in Washington State, where fresh berries were everywhere, helped Mary hone her baking skills.

“We’d visit her over the summer and go berry picking,” Mary recalls. “We’d come back and she’d make cobblers. Lots of cobblers.” Aunt Millie loved sharing her baking skills with Mary.

From Hobby to Hollywood

Baking was always a hobby of Mary’s, but like many adults, her day job was in the corporate world. But that didn’t stop her from baking for the company’s holiday parties or co-workers’ birthday parties.

Mary baked her stepdaughter’s birthday cakes. Then her own daughter’s birthday cakes when she came along. She’d bake for friends who asked.

Eventually, this led Mary to bake a cake for–of all people–her ex-husband’s girlfriend KT. A friend of the KT’s tried the cake Mary made and was blown away. That cake, by the way, was called ‘The Mayan,’ a dark chocolate masterpiece which blended the boldness of espresso with the slight heat of cayenne and pasilla chili, all enrobed with a rich, spice-infused chocolate ganache.

“The woman at the party said it was the best cake she’d ever had,” shares Mary. “Then she told me she wanted to introduce me to Dyan Manning, who’d won Food Network’s ‘The Great Food Truck Race’, and I was like, ‘Heck yeah, I’d love to meet her!”

Dyan and Mary struck up a friendship, and Mary started baking cupcakes out of a commercial kitchen for Dyan’s new cafe. Dyan would continuously sell out of Mary’s cupcakes as quickly as she stocked them.

Closing The Chapter On The Corporate World

As Mary’s baking ramped up, her corporate career stagnated when her company moved her division to the East Coast. In 2011, at a crossroads on whether to remain corporate or chase her passion, Mary chose her passion and went all in on baking, naming her new venture PURE Cupcakes.

She baked in a commercial kitchen for clients and, through a lot of sweat equity (and word of mouth), Mary grew to 70 clients in just under a year.

Hollywood Calling

One afternoon in the spring of 2012, while at lunch with girlfriends, Mary received a call from the Food Network asking if she’d like to participate in their show, Cupcake Wars. At first, she thought it was a joke. When she realized this was the real deal, she jumped at the opportunity.

The premise of Cupcake Wars is that it’s a baking competition where competitors are given different challenges over a series of rounds. Each round, one pair of competitors is eliminated until a winner is declared.

In the first round, the theme was, fortuitously, the San Diego Zoo. As a San Diegan, Mary knew the ins and outs of the zoo like most San Diego residents do. She whipped up a carrot cake with caramelized crickets on top, and easily won over the judges with her concoction.

“Florian Bellanger [renowned pastry chef and permanent Cupcake Wars judge] said it was the best carrot cupcake he’d ever had on the show,” Mary says.

And then she knew. She knew she’d take the $10,000 grand prize. And she did.

She Built It. And They Came For Cupcakes.

After filming, but before Cupcake Wars, Mary opened her brick-and-mortar location, PURE Cupcakes, in Pacific Beach in early 2013, and the timing couldn’t have been better.

Two months after opening, Cupcake Wars aired, and the popularity of PURE Cupcakes exploded. Mary was feeling the euphoria she felt as a kid. Life was good.

Then, the shopping center where PURE Cupcakes was located went under renovation. Mary saw the writing on the wall and was prepared for her lease to double, so she began looking elsewhere.

In 2022, Mary decided to relocate to the Del Mar Highlands with hopes and dreams of growing even bigger and better. Instead, she faced a series of hurdles, starting with construction issues and ending with landlord bureaucracy. The bills piled up, and Mary made the gut-wrenching decision to close the doors of PURE Cupcakes for the final time in late 2024.

Whisking Away To A New Adventure

After closing PURE, Mary told herself she’d take some time off to regroup, but that didn’t last long. The baking itch kept scratching, and she quickly gave in. Mary rebranded as Velvet Whisk Cake Studio, where she is back at a commercial kitchen, baking her signature cupcakes, cakes, and more.

Mary looks at this transition as a positive one, as it will allow her to focus on what she does best: provide highly personalized service and the opportunity to create more of the mouth-watering treats she’s built her reputation on.

Whether baking for a wedding, corporate events, or to supply restaurants and cafes, you can taste Mary’s passion in her baked goods. Besides award-winning taste, her creations could also be considered works of art that look almost too good to eat. Almost.

Planning a Wedding or Corporate Event?

She is eager to connect with local residents and businesses to reintroduce herself.

If you’re interested in ordering baked goods from Velvet Whisk Cake Studio, you can reach out to Mary at info@velvetwhiskcakestudio.com. Mary’s commercial kitchen is in Mission Gorge, but she is open to deliveries in Clairemont for a small fee since she lives in the neighborhood.

If you are a local business interested in sampling Mary’s products for corporate events or to stock, please reach out to her as well.