More From Five Questions For Rachel Kitchen

In this month’s Five Questions interview, available in the March issue of Sauce, Sarah’s Cake Stop driver Rachel Kitchen told us about St. Louisans’ response to her cupcake truck on the road and her working relationship with a certain taco-toting food truck. Now, in the second part of the interview, she reveals how she wound up behind the wheel of Sarah’s Cake Stop, what happens when you mix booze with cupcake batter, one unlikely customer and just what she means by “raw cupcakes.” How did you get this job? I responded to a Craigslist ad. They only said they wanted a sales associate. I had no clue I was going to be the cupcake girl. I had never driven a truck that size, either. Describe the importance of social networking to your success. The social networking is key. It is the most important thing for us, because without Facebook and Twitter, no one would know where we are. I can’t park every day on the corner of Chestnut and Seventh [streets] because if somebody else parked there I have to park somewhere else. Just today a lady told me how glad she was that we Tweet all our locations. It also lets people have a say – we can ask people where they want us, and if there’s enough agreement, we will go there. Where do you like to park the cupcake truck? I aim for the corner for room to park, visibility and foot traffic. How many cupcakes does the average customer buy? The average customer probably buys four cupcakes, because we have a four-pack, and there’s a minimum of three cupcakes to use a credit card. When they pick out three, and then see that empty spot in the four-pack, in their mind they go from three to four pretty often. What flavors do you sell? The standards are snack cake, vanilla and red velvet. The rotating flavors, which are a really extensive list, include “happy hour cupcakes” that are often brushed with a liquor reduction, and those include raspberry Margarita, vodka Lemon Drop, Captain ’n’ Coke, the Butterfinger Shot with butterscotch schnapps in it, and the chocolate-caramel mudslide. … One of the ones that’s been getting pretty popular is salted caramel – it’s an amazing cupcake with caramel cake brushed with caramel and topped with caramel-cream icing, then drizzled in caramel and finished with a sprinkle of sea salt. We just keep adding flavors. We give our pastry chef complete reign to do whatever she wants. In fact, today was the first day I’d seen an Almond Joy or a Sno Cap. That’s the beauty of the cupcake industry – the versatility. What’s the most popular flavor? Snack cake. That’s our version of the cake by you-know-who. It’s double-chocolate cake filled with vanilla frosting and topped with a vanilla buttercream, then dipped in a chocolate ganache, and then decorated. I heard you have invented some flavors of cupcake. I try to help. The pumpkin pie was mine. Pumpkin cake with cinnamon-cream cheese frosting. How many cupcakes do you start out with in the truck? It depends on the weather. Today I took out 120 and sold out before 1 p.m., so I sold out in less than two hours. We can bring out as many as 750, so there’s room for growth. Do you get a good employee discount? I get a good employee discount – it’s called “damaged cupcakes.” I do have to try every flavor so I know what I’m doing. I tell myself that I’m “quality control.” I understand you have had to deal with some harassment from the cops. At first, with the older ordinances still on the books, they didn’t know how to handle us. They weren’t prepared for a girl in a cupcake truck. The city has been very open to working with us, though. We had one lady who was a dispatcher at the police station, and she used the police to find out where we were, just so she could come down and buy cupcakes. What are some of the strange occurrences you’ve seen? We have a couple that comes every summer and buys cupcakes for their dog. They said whenever the dog sees the container on their counter he gets excited. I actually picked up a new way to eat a cupcake from a customer. She showed me how to rip off the bottom half of the cupcake and put it on top to make a sandwich. It’s delicious, and you don’t get the cream all over your face. Does the truck ever go out at night? In the summer, we started doing Kirkwood at night on Thursdays, during their concert series. We’re still doing Kirkwood now, during the winter, but only from 3 p.m. till 5 or 6 because it’s so cold. In the summer, we’ll have longer hours at night in Kirkwood, and also do the Botanical Garden Wednesday night concert series. We actually bake the evening cupcakes fresh in the afternoon, and I go back to the bakery to pick them up. You sell “raw cupcakes” – what are those? Walnuts and dates and cacao and sometimes cinnamon, processed in a food processor to the consistency of a really dense brownie. … The top is a ganache made from agave nectar and cacao with a little bit of coconut oil. It’s all-natural, all-organic, with no refined sugars, and hasn’t been baked. We do have some vegan and raw-diet people who follow us, but I love the raw cupcakes, too, and I’m not a vegan. Can you imagine a scenario where there’s a bunch of diabetics in insulin shock passed out on the sidewalk and the cupcake truck pulls up and saves the day? It’s always a possibility. I like to think that I save lives every day.