Written by Amy Stoltenberg
Photos by Katherine Rountree
Most people can be categorized into two distinct groups: cupcake people and macaroon people. This distinction has been known to separate friends, families, and even lovers across the line between homestyle baking and fine pastry crafting. However, at Mabel’s Cupcake Emporium at 6 E. State St., there is room for both treats in the gleaming glass pastry cases.
Mabel Francis Potter was owner Dee Gibson’s grandmother, whose recipes and legacy inspire much of the baking done at the restaurant. Gibson draws on a long line of female bakers in her family, and it is their recipes she has collected and shared over the years.
“There was six girls and one boy in my mother’s family,” said Gibson. “When my aunt would come in from Tennessee, she would bring her recipe cards and some blank ones and we would get together and copy each other’s recipes down. Sharing recipes has always been a thing that my family did.”
The idea of starting a cupcake shop in Savannah came from Gibosn’s son, a SCAD alumni and current L.A. resident. His home in California was around the corner from mega-popular cupcake shop Sprinkles, which is credited with starting the cupcake craze back in the early 2000s. After watching the Sprinkles line wind down around the block every day, he decided it was time for his mother to share her own, superior cupcake recipes with the public here in Savannah.
Mabel’s Cupcake Emporium offers a variety of cupcake flavors, from tuxedo (white cake with brownie batter on the inside) to carrot cream cheese to pistachio with almond. Their signature cupcake, appropriately called the “Famous Mabel’s,” was featured in the New York Times.
“We always have red velvet and Famous Mabel’s because those are the two best sellers,” said Gibson. “Famous Mabel’s is the best selling number one. We rotate the rest of them out. We always try to have something chocolate and some confetti or some white cake like that, and then we do the fruit cake and mix those in, as well.”
In addition to traditional cupcakes, Mabel’s also offers a variety of other baked goods, including whoopie pies, muffins, and “cupcookies.”
“The cupcookies were my son’s idea,” said Gibson. “Customers often said they wished we sold cookies, so my son said, ‘Why don’t we bake cookie dough in cupcake tins and call them cupcookies?’”
The result? A thick, dense treat with a soft and chewy inside, a firm outside, and buttercream on top.
“Cupcookies take the best part of a classic cookie—which is of course the middle—and blow it up into its own thing,” said Loo Baxter, a Savannah tourist hailing from Mississippi. Baxter and his kin sampled four different cupcakes, and the cupcookie was by far the family favorite.
To the left of the cake stands filled with these delicious delights is the display case that contains the macaroons, laid out on their respective trays like precious stones at a jewelry store.
Gibson and her team started producing their own house-made macaroons about four months ago after their former supplier, Maison de Macaroon, couldn’t keep up with the growing demand at the cupcake shop. Compared to the classic American macaroon, Gibson’s are about twice as big and have a wide range of flavors. They do, after all, have cupcakes to compete with.
“We are trying to do some different flavors that you don’t see just anywhere, like maple bacon, chocolate chip cookie dough, and blueberry cheesecake,” said Gibson.
Other flavors include peanut butter and jelly, southern pecan, Georgia peach, and honey lavender.
Stop in at Mabel’s next time you and your companions are in search of a spot that offers a compromise between dainty delicacies and hearty homestyle baked goods.