Once Fighting For Her Life, Chef MoWils Is Reclaiming Her Crown
by Melissa Jacobs
There Chef MoWils was, winning first place at Taste of Philadelphia, a prize bestowed upon her by Chef Jose Garces, one of her idols. In the beginning of the event, Garces had expressed confusion about what she offered him to eat: savory cupcakes.
Bite-sized like their sweet counterparts, savory cupcakes have bases made of corn, herbs, and sometimes vegetables. They are topped with a wide variety of ingredients, from seafood to meat to caviar or kimchi. Or Buffalo chicken, which is what she served Garces, along with The Tapas, a spicy corn cupcake topped with garlic aioli, smoked salmon, tomatillo guacamole, roasted red pepper and a lime shrimp.
After she won first place, Garces took Chef MoWils aside. “He said, ‘I never heard of a savory cupcake. But it was one of the best things I’ve ever tasted. Don’t give up. Keep going.’ If Chef Garces hadn’t said that, I don’t know where I’d be today,” she said.
What followed: The Food Network, “The Dr. Oz Show,” The Philadelphia Inquirer, Food + Wine and People magazine. It was a lot of attention for the Camden, NJ native who had previously run a successful auto tag and insurance business, but hadn’t gone to culinary school. “I went to the University Of Grandmom,” she said. “She was a pastry chef and worked in cafeterias and food service. We baked at home, but it wasn’t until I started experimenting with flavors and textures that I created the savory cupcake.”
Chef MoWils also makes sweet cupcakes like chocolate-mint, red velvet, cinnamon-coffee-mocha, vanilla with peanut butter and sweet potato with maple-orange buttercream. The novelty and flat-out deliciousness of Chef MoWils’ culinary creations won so much acclaim that she launched It’s A CupCake!, an upscale catering company specializing in weddings, galas and other special events.
Then, illness struck. In 2015, Chef MoWils was diagnosed with a rare kidney disease. For the next three years, she was bedridden. Her hands couldn’t grasp objects, her vision was off and she was unable to walk without a cane – let alone bake. Depressed, 50 pounds bigger and on a heavy course of steroids, she finally found a holistic doctor who offered her a path forward. “He said that he could bring my kidney back if I was diligent about my health and stuck to the protocol he gave me. And that’s what I did,” she says. “It drained my savings. But it worked.”
With her health restored, Chef MoWils set about rebuilding It’s A CupCake! By 2023, It’s A CupCake! was doing robust online sales. In 2024, she opened an office in Bryn Mawr to accommodate her blossoming Main Line catering business, which now includes corporate box lunches, specialty hors d’oeuvres, desserts, Brownieology and Luxe Layers puddings. Located on Lancaster Ave. in downtown Bryn Mawr, the It’s A CupCake! office is open by appointment for pre-event cupcake tastings and catering planning.
Chef MoWils is coaching other people who want to be bakers or pursue other entrepreneurial ventures. Asked for words of wisdom, she keeps it as simple as Garces did. “Don’t give up. You may need to pause and reset. But don’t give up,” she said. “Some days are hard. Some years are hard. But if you believe that you are on the right path, then stay on it.”
For more, visit https://www.itsacupcake.com.
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