COURTESY OF JASON W. BROOKS
Catherine Forlasto works on a confection at Toasted Mallow Cupcakery in Chandler. The confectionery has several unique bakery and dessert items at its location on the west side of Arizona Avenue near Loop 202, in the front of a Walmart shopping center.
Toasted Mallow Cupcakery still makes all of its butter cream from scratch.
That’s one of the many ways Tricia Arce says she tries to keep return business — and bring in new customers — to her Arizona Avenue confectionery and the Gilbert location.
“We’re pretty picky about our ingredients,” Arce said. “When I shop anywhere, I don’t like to be cheated out of getting the best stuff. We try to use as many natural products as we can.”
Arce opened Toasted Mallow’s Gilbert location in 2014. Billed as the “world’s first marshmallow cafe,” Arce used all of the savings to get the business going, and it paid off, eventually getting featured on the Cooking Network, Food Channel, TJ Maxx, HomeGoods, and Sweet Pete’s Candy.
About five years ago, she said, she bought Sweet Daddy Cupcakes in Chandler, located next to Global Bikes in a highly visible front area of a Walmart shopping center. It didn’t take long to realize the name would need to be changed to Toasted Mallow Cupcakery to better fit an emphasis on cupakes.
The Chandler store also offers cupcakes, smash cakes, thick shakes, frozen coffee drinks, small cakes and much more, including cereal treats. The cupcakery also caters many types of events.
COVID-19 certainly affected many businesses that relied on in-person events for significant business. Toasted Mallow Cupcakery’s catering was no exception.
“It’s finally started to pick up again, but inflation and supply-chain stuff have been challenges, too,” Arce said.
The catering side usually stays busy during the most popular times of year for weddings in Arizona. There are also business or corporate events, such as the recent opening of a furniture store in Queen Creek.
Arce said she’s happy loyal customers decided to shop local and kept the two locations going throughout COVID-19.
“COVID was really a crappy time of life for many people, so we tried to be there to offer some comfort treats in that time,” she said.
Arce said the Chandler location’s visibility is ideal, as drivers can see it while heading north along Arizona Avenue from Loop 202, or are waiting in line for the Pecos Road traffic signal.
However, turning into the Toasted Mallow Cupcakery/Global Bikes lot can be tricky, so it’s best to either turn around in the Walmart main lot or enter off of Pecos Road, turning right into the cupcakery lot just before the west exit light.
“It’s one of the asks we have as a local business,” Arce said of getting to the shop. “Hopefully, we’re all realizing the value of small businesses. If we see people spending $47 on Stanley tumblers, we know most of those folks can also support local.”
Toasted Mallow Cupcakery can be reached at 480-508-5659 or through thetoastedmallow.com. The street address of the Chandler location is 1055 S. Arizona Ave. Unit 7 in Chandler.