About Us

What happens when you get a group of woman talking about a get together involving cupcakes?  A brief conversation on Twitter sparked an idea of epic proportion.  Now, Cupcake Conference is gaining media attention and excitement around the web.  We are hosting our first of many events on July, 31st 2010 at Grand America hotel.

Meet our committee:

Stephanie Hansen
Twitter: @sahans
Email: stephanie@cupcakeconference.com
Blog: The Daily Blarg
Hometown: It’s a secret… shhhhhhh

Favorite Cupcake- I am sooooo boring.  I just like a plain old butter cake with chocolate buttercream frosting.  But anything with butter is amazing… right?

Stephanie Hansen quit the fast paced corporate world about five years ago to focus on her one true love, chauffeuring, also known as raising teenagers. Her spare time is spent reading, cooking, eating (obviously), blogging, tweeting and watching trashy reality television. All of course while cuddling up in her Snuggie and sporting a BumpIt.

Stephanie’s upbeat and perky attitude, along with her silly antics, helped her launch and sustain her blog “The Daily Blarg” where she takes on social issues like the existence of unicorns and manscaping. Her love of food, fashion, fun and friendship provided her with the opportunity to write for the review site Sassy Scoops. And her insane need to hear “are we there yet” helps keep her family alive while on long family road trips.

Stephanie recently added “world domination” on her ever growing to-do list. Of course her plot to take over the world includes her family’s weekly Thursday night meal: spaghetti. Thursketti is soon to become a household name thanks to the launch of the “thursketti” hashtag on Twitter. Twitter is the first step in all plots to take over the world. You can join Stephanie’s quest for world domination by following her on Twitter.


Becky Olsen
Twitter: @DomesticBecky
Email: becky@cupcakeconference.com
Blog(s): Utah Loves Cupcakes  Project Domestication
Hometown: Orem, Utah

Interests: food, travel, cupcakes (obviously), baking, rollerblading, anything my mom does, Cook’s Illustrated, Food Network, Saved By the Bell, random community events and well-planned parties with fun people.

Favorite Utah Cupcake: Cupcakes are like children, I don’t have a favorite.

Becky Olsen loves Utah and loves cupcakes. It really is that simple. After a short stint of living in Manhattan, the mecca of all things cupcake, she fell in love with the individual-sized treats. Upon returning to her native Utah, Becky knew the cupcake scene in the Beehive State was on the cusp of exploding, and she couldn’t wait to be a part of it and share it with others.

Becky authors the blog Utah Loves Cupcakes –the voice of cupcakes in Utah– where she scopes out the latest cupcake news in Utah, reviews cupcake bakeries and cupcake-related items. Her blog also features cupcake recipes and ideas from other Utah cupcake enthusiasts. She loves using high-quality, local ingredients; especially if it means learning something new and being able to enjoy a special treat with those she loves. You can follow Becky’s personal baking adventures at Project Domestication.

Becky graduated with a degree in Communications with an emphasis Public Relations from Brigham Young University. By day she is a Communications and Social Media manager for a local food products company where she specializes in product writing, marketing, social media relations and traditional public relations.

Ryley Eaton
Twitter: @ryles
Email: ryley@cupcakeconference.com
Blog(s): That’s My Family, That’s My Cake
Hometown: Just ask her…

Favorite Cupcake: Coming soon…

Ryley is a mother, a baker, and a conqueror of corporate America. She tries to keep it all together while raising a 19 month old boy with the most beautiful eyes ever, running a growing cake business and working 50 hours a week in a high-profile corporate career.

Her story started in 2007 when she was determined that her calling in life was to be a food blogger. Slowly, her blog talking about beautiful and delicious food morphed into a place where she talked about how many times she’d thrown up from the flu of ’07 to the shape and color of the bruise that covered her ENTIRE butt during the great ice fall of ’08. Deciding people really didn’t want to read about butt bruises and puking while looking for sugar cookie recipes, she bought the domain for That’s My Family, where she chronicled the pregnancy of her first son (born Dec 08), the struggles of THE MOST DIFFICULT BABY EVER, the discovery of his food allergies and how motherhood was/is nothing like she imagined. She breaks all the rules of the society she lives in by being the only source of income for her family while her husband stays home to take care of the baby they both love so dearly.

When not in the thick of wedding season she can be found writing about her family life and her son’s food allergies.

Her favorite food is grilled cheese sandwiches, but she is currently living the life of a vegan who eats meat. (Thanks to said son’s allergies..) She misses grilled cheese. A lot.

Gina Bégin
Twitter: @sugaredmagnolia
Email: gina@cupcakeconference.com
Blog(s): 451  SketchDining  Sugared Magnolia (website)
Hometown: Somewhere warm and sunny, which is why she likes cold & snowy

Favorite Cupcake- you know, those one kind… mmm, boy.


Gina is the proud owner of mad kitchen skills, a southern heritage, dual citizenship and K2 skis. She ofttimes can be found blogging her life secrets at 451. She owns Sugared Magnolia, an organic, fair-trade bakery in the 801. When searching for wisdom, she turns to Calvin & Hobbes; when searching for snow, she turns to Big Cottonwood Canyon and when searching for something delicious, she turns to her Quebecois family’s time-tested recipes. Sugar pie made with pure syrup from her family’s maple farm? Mmmm… yes.

Gina’s passion lies in food activism, but her alter-ego secretly loves a stolen bite of something greasy and dubious. This split personality explains the organization of SketchDining, her all-star epicurean daredevil team. But ask her on most days and she’ll dive into a frenzy over growing and preparing food at home. Or, when you can’t, she says, go with what’s local and sustainably/humanely raised. Try it; you’ll like it. She pinky swears.