Gray serves up flavorful art at Dozen

Dozen Cupcakes 1707 Murray Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15217 412-420-5135

Everyone knows cupcakes… Dozen Cupcakes 1707 Murray Ave. Pittsburgh, PA 15217 412-420-5135

Everyone knows cupcakes – those tiny, frosted muffin-like treats wrapped in wax paper. Yet, while anyone can pick up a box of Duncan Hines cake mix and bake a batch, nobody really understands cupcakes like James Gray. After all, ever since Gray opened Dozen Cupcakes in Squirrel Hill less than a year ago, he’s been baking thousands per week.

“I bake every single day that we’re open,” says Gray, sitting at one of the three tiny tables in his minimalist bakery. “In an average week, give or take 3,000 cupcakes.” Gray never imagined that he would be baking the most popular confections this side of Manhattan’s Magnolia Bakery. For a while, he thought he’d given up baking for good.

While attending The Cooking and Hospitality Institute of Chicago, James Gray wanted to become a chef. After several post-graduation stints as a baker, however, Gray decided he was finished with the fast-paced world of kitchen work.

The Chicago native moved to Pittsburgh for a change of pace, planning on using his master’s degree in education to become a teacher.

“I had no intention of getting back into the restaurant business,” he admits, but says he fell back on his culinary training “really just because I couldn’t find a job.” Gray didn’t waste any time, either; he took about six weeks from the conception of his cupcake bakery to opening the doors for business on Murray Avenue, in a former incense and Eastern imports shop.

On its first day open, Dozen sold out within two and a half hours, and business has hardly slowed down. “It just sort of snowballed