While the largest fair in New England is still weeks away, a Connecticut bakery has been preparing since the start of August.
“All of it is from scratch. Literally in our bakery they’re mixing the apple mixture by hand for the crisp. Everything is homemade,” said owner Josh Virkler. “There’s no factories.”
Last year, LuAnn’s Bakery and Cafe in Ellington made a name for itself by offering a pickle cupcake at The Big E in West Springfield, which MassLive’s Nick O’Malley described as a ”sweet muffin with cream cheese — with a little bit of tzatziki vibes.”
It was the first year the bakery was at The Big E. It offered five cupcakes and frosting shots. But the pickle cupcake outsold all the other cupcake flavors combined.
Overall, the bakery sold about 10,000 cupcakes during the fair’s 17-day run.
“It’s super exciting. It feels really good to be have people notice what we do, and the fun that we try to have here,” Virkler said.
The pickle cupcake was first offered at LuAnn’s Bakery and Cafe for the Super Bowl about five years ago. The bakery continued to offer it during the Super Bowl for “something weird.”
The bakery then brought it to a local farmers market’s pickle festival. They sold out.
They decided to perfect their recipe and try it at The Big E.
Coming up with unique flavor ideas is a group effort, Virkler said.
On Wednesday, the cafe, which is open all year, was offering s’more cupcakes, snickerdoodle cupcakes and strawberry lemonade cupcakes.
But for The Big E this year, it’ll be focusing on a Maple Bacon Cupcake, which uses maple syrup from Ferrindino Maple, a Massachusetts maple farm. The bakery is also still offering the pickle cupcake, a gluten-free pickle cupcake, triple chocolate, Funfetti and chocolate pumpkin marble at The Big E.
The new maple flavor was decided in a customer vote, according to an Instagram post. About 500 people voted.
But the cupcake is different from the bakery’s past maple bacon cupcakes.
LuAnn’s Bakery and Cafe is returning to The Big E with its pickle cupcake. It’ll also have a new flavor, the Maple Bacon cupcake.Heather Morrison
“This one we used our vanilla cake, drizzled the pure maple syrup over top, let it soak in, then topped it with maple buttercream and finished it with maple syrup candied bacon. Perfection,” the bakery wrote.
The cupcakes are topped with an abundance of candied bacon. The bottom includes the maple taste, making it taste similar to a fluffy pancake.
It’s not the only new item coming to The Big E.
The bakery is also bringing two new mini crisp pies and coffee.
The apple crisp pie gives fairgoers a traditional apple pie taste without having to buy an entire pie. The fruits-of-the-farm crisp pie includes apples, berries and “a little bit of rhubarb,” which adds a tartness to the pie.
The bakery teamed up with Modern Milkman to offer bottled lattes after realizing they were a bakery without any coffee at The Big E last year.
“We had so many people coming to us last year saying, ‘Do you have coffee? Do you have coffee? Do you have coffee,’” Virkler said, adding that they were having to send people inside the Better Living Center to the Dunkin’.
As a local bakery and cafe, that hurt. So, they’re making some changes.
The bottle lattes will be available with cow’s milk or oat milk, vanilla flavor and are 15 ounces. They will also offer bottled cold brew and bottled chai lattes. All the coffees are cold — which likely isn’t a problem for most New Englanders.
And they’ll have more gluten-free options.
All five cupcake flavors will be available gluten-free thanks to their gluten-free kitchen, which is totally separate and will be boxed separate from the other cupcakes.
This, including their vegan cupcake, is an important option for the bakery.
“It’s super important because I heard from so many people at the fair last year, ‘Thank you for having gluten-free. There’s so few options at a fair,’” Virkler said.
The Big E returns to West Springfield on Sept. 13.
