New sweet shop offers line of gourmet cupcakes, custom cakes and more

WASILLA — A maraschino cupcake with toasted coconut and a coconut pastry cream filling, topped with a lime rum butter-cream frosting and toasted coconut.

They call that “Paradise” at Sugar High — a new dessert shop in the Frontier Mall, 321 W. Parks Hwy., Wasilla. Tabitha Pedalino and family began offering a daily selection of cupcakes, tarts, cake truffles, custom cakes, giant cookies and brownies to customers in July 2013.

Gourmet cupcakes are the shop’s specialty, and “Paradise” is the newest flavor in an impressive 38- flavor lineup that includes Peanut Butter Cup, Key Lime Pie, Boston Cream, Red Velvet, Chocolate Maple Bacon, Strawberry Champagne and Lemon Drop.

Strawberry Champagne started as the cupcake of the month for January, but it’s grown so popular, Pedalino said she’s added it to the shop’s list of featured flavors.

February’s specialty flavors are Tall Dark and Handsome and Blueberry Bombshell, in celebration of Valentine’s Day.

From fillings to frosting and cakes to cookies and tarts — everything in the pastry cases is made from scratch in the shops small kitchen.

Pedalino said she came to the business through bridal consulting, where she got interested in cakes. She said she started teaching herself to bake and decorate cakes and a new career grew out of it.

“I changed directions rather quickly,” Pedalino said.

Although she moved her operation into the retail space six months ago, she said she started selling her creations at the Anchorage and Wasilla markets for a couple of years and has been testing new recipes on her family at Sunday dinner for the past three years.

“I think it’s important to bake from scratch,” she said. “To know what’s in your food and who made it.”

The mother of three said she gets ideas for new flavor creations from reality food shows, on Pinterest, or from brainstorming with baker Alex Prabucki. While the spark of inspiration may come from TV or the Internet, she said all of the recipes she uses were refined in her kitchen and reviewed at family dinner.

Pedalino grew up in a military family stationed in Alaska. She said her dad retired from the military here and she fell in love with and married a local boy almost 10 years ago. She and husband Rian Pedalino have three children, ages 2, 6 and 7.

The oldest turns 8 soon and Pedalino said she has agreed to create the three-dimensional shark cake her son requested.

“It will be the biggest cake yet that he’s had,” she said.

They used to get more basic cakes before she opened the shop, Pedalino said.

But experimenting with their birthday cakes is partly how she got her baking start, she said.

Olga Tyson who works next door at Tummies and Tots Maternity Clothes and More stops for coffee and an enrobed cake every day. She said she’ll be working out all summer, but it’s worth it.

Pedalino said she sees lots of repeat customers like Tyson who come for the confections and conversation.

In some ways, the shop remains a work in progress. Some decorating details are unfinished, but that will come. It was no small undertaking just adding a kitchen, storage and showroom areas to what was a retail suite in the Frontier Mall. She said the transformation required building interior walls, electrical and plumbing work and adding a kitchen with counters, cabinets, sink, refrigerator and five ovens to the space.

“It was a family and friend project,” Pedalino said.

For now, the confectionery has two employees, Pedalino and Prabucki. The two women say they have fun together working and creating new flavor creations. It was during one of their laughter-filled conversations last week about flavors that go together that the idea for the Paradise cupcake was born.

“This one just kind of came to us,” Prabucki said.

So the two posted that flavor combination and a couple of other ideas to the Sugar High Facebook page and asked fans to decide; they selected Paradise.

Prabucki said she never realized how many people love coconut before they posted the idea to their Facebook page.

“I thought I was the only one who loves coconut,” she said.

Pedalino said people like being asked to vote and seem eager to come in a try the flavor they helped select.

“Word is getting out,” she said.

For more information, contact 715-6188, sugarhighak@gmail.com or visit sugarhighak.com

Contact Heather A. Resz at 352-2268 or heather.resz@frontiersman.com.