Margo Engberg has been baking for as long as she remembers.

Whether it was for a birthday, the holidays or any other celebration, she would mark the occasion with sweets. So, it wasn’t too much of a stretch when she decided to open her own cupcake shop in Redmond Town Center.

“When the cupcake rage started, I thought it was a great way to combine a passion with business,” the Kirkland resident said.

While Engberg thought her shop, PinkaBella Cupcakes, would do well, she was in no way prepared for how successful her business would be — especially after only a year following their grand opening. In addition to the business from the mall’s foot traffic, Engberg and her staff have been busy baking cupcakes for school and charity events, weddings, birthday parties and other events including a few for Microsoft.

“We were booked solid all summer,” Engberg said. “It was awesome. It has far exceeded our expectations.”

She added that one weekend this summer had them baking cupcakes for eight separate events.

PinkaBella’s success has also led to the cupcakery winning the title of Best Desserts in the 2010 Best of Western Washington competition for King 5’s Evening Magazine. The top five finalists in the category included three other cupcake shops: New York Cupcakes in Bellevue, Trophy Cupcakes and Party in the Wallingford neighborhood in Seattle and Cupcake Royale in West Seattle.

“We were so excited,” Engberg said about learning they had won. “(Cake decorator Shawn Hemp) and I had tears in our eyes. We feel very overjoyed.”

Hemp was friends with Engberg before she opened PinkaBella and had been a cake decorator for about 25 years before Engberg asked her to join her business. Having been with Engberg since the beginning, Hemp was just as surprised and excited to see how much their “two-woman show” has grown in only a year.

“I thought it would take off eventually,” she said.

GROWING BUSINESS

The unexpected success has also allowed Engberg to open a second PinkaBella location in Bellevue Square in June. She never planned on opening a second location, but when she was approached with the idea of going to Bellevue, Engberg accepted. They are still working on getting their name out, but Engberg said the Bellevue location is doing well.

While Hemp and Engberg may have been surprised with their success, Christina Henning, senior manager in marketing for the town center’s management office was not. Henning said they were looking at a few different cupcake shops to bring to Redmond Town Center, which did not have one before PinkaBella, but once they tried Engberg’s cupcakes, they were sold. Henning and others in the management office knew the cupcakes were special, so the Best Desserts win came as no surprise.

“We felt pretty confident she would win the title,” Henning said. “It’s absolutely fantastic. It’s a great win for Redmond Town Center as well as PinkaBella.”

As a thank you for the support, PinkaBella gave away 1,000 cupcakes to their first 1,000 customers on Saturday.

Hemp credits a lot of PinkaBella’s success to the loyal customers — many whom she knows by name and cupcake.

Although many of their customers are local or at least live on the Eastside, PinkaBella does get some customers who drive quite far to get their sugar fix. Becky Roehl comes from Lynnwood every few weeks with her son for PinkaBella cupcakes.

“We come all the time,” she said. “I never make cupcakes anymore because (my son) loves these.”

Roehl said the cupcakes are worth it, otherwise she wouldn’t make the drive, adding that her favorite cupcake is salted caramel and her son’s is chocolate mint.

Roehl has known Engberg since college and is happy to make the drive to support her friend. As a regular customer, Roehl was thrilled when she learned about PinkaBella’s Best of Western Washington win.

“I think it’s great. It’s exciting because I picked the best cupcake place to get my cupcakes,” she said.

IN-DEPTH DECORATING

She said in addition to good cupcakes, Engberg’s win could also be due to all the thought she put into all aspects of the shop, such as decorating. Roehl and Engberg were roommates in college and Roehl said her friend has not changed in this aspect at all.

Engberg, who has been nicknamed “Pinky,” said from her purse to her home decor, pink is her signature color, making it natural for her cupcakery to have pink in its name.

“I think cupcakes just feel pink,” Engberg said. “It just seemed fitting that my cupcakes would be pink.”

PinkaBella was originally called Pinkalicious, but after about six months, the author of the “Pinkalicious” book series, who holds the trademarks for the books and accessories, decided to sue her. Engberg had done her research and trademarked the name Pinkalicious for baked goods and cupcakes and although she knew could fight it, she decided to just change the name.

While a name change could have hurt the business, Engberg said they received a lot of support from customers and the surrounding community because they kept going afterwards. It has been this show of support that Engberg is very thankful for, which has been a large part of her success.

“People have just really embraced us,” she said. “We feel really grateful for the people here.”