It has become sort of a trend in today for people to become vegetarians and vegans because they feel that getting nourishment from animals is not right. Many restaurants and cook books are trying to support this lifestyle and ensure that people who choose to cut off all meat still get all the nutrients, plus variety in their diet.

One thing that vegans give up is dairy products, which means most of the baked goods and desserts they used to enjoy. For Janice Martinez, this just wasn’t going to work.

Martinez, an FCC student created a new niche –making cupcakes and other sweets for vegans and vegetarians to savor and enjoy.

“I started to make these cupcakes because a lot of my friends and I live the vegan lifestyle,” Martinez said. She has been in the business for four years, and so far business has been good for the young entrepreneur.

“I get two to three orders a week, and a lot of last minute orders,” she said, adding that she gets a lot of orders for the holiday seasons, especially during Halloween and Christmas. “So far, the biggest order I have done was for 80 cupcakes for a birthday,” she said. She also has a few large orders coming up in the next few months.

Martinez has always been interested in baking and was good at it, but first started making her sweets from packaged boxes. She started experimenting with making them from scratch and realized the taste is much better. Ever since then, she has been making her cupcakes that way. She got the recipes for the first vegan cupcakes she baked from a cook book called “Vegan with a Vengeance.”  They were plain vanilla and chocolate, and then she started putting twists on the recipes.

She got most of her cupcake flavors from recipes that already exist, but she uses vegan ingredients.  She said, “For vegan cupcakes you have to substitute a lot of different ingredients; for example, I use potato flakes instead of eggs; that may seem weird but it does the same thing that eggs do.”  She also explained that most of the ingredients you use to make regular cupcakes are available in vegan form. “I use vegan butter and shortening for my butter cream frosting, and it tastes just like the regular stuff.”

Every artist has an inspiration, and for Martinez, her inspiration for her cupcakes comes from the world around her. A lot of it is from the punk rock music scene and her friends. She sells her cupcakes at a local music venue called CYC where she and her friends promote and encourage local music artists.   She said, “When we have shows at CYC, I sell my cupcakes rather cheap, but it’s something my friends and others enjoy.”

The most popular flavors of her cupcakes are the “peanut butter bomb” and the “funfetti” cupcakes. She said that with the fall right around the corner, “pumpkin spice and red velvet are always popular.” She also has a lot of cupcakes that are not so traditional. Her “churro” cupcake has cinnamon and sugar and tastes like the well known Mexican snack.

Martinez also has a few of her own original flavors like the “funfetti” cupcake. “It is my own little creation that I am quite proud of,” she said.  Martinez has many different flavors, all equally tasty, cupcakes that her customers can choose from.

As of now she cooks out of her kitchen at home, but that is not how she wants it to be forever. After she gets her degree from FCC, she plans to go to pastry school up north and then open up her shop. She said, “Ten years from now, I want to have my own shop here in Fresno.”