The cupcake craze that has surfaced in other cities is about to show up in Sacramento. Teresa Urkofsky, a longtime presence on the local dining scene, has signed a lease to open Babycakes Bakery in east Sacramento. She's planning on a mid-October opening at 3675 J St., a small space that previously housed a Pizza Guys franchise.

Urkofsky, who in recent years has been a chef and instructor at American River College, said she got the itch to return to commercial cooking after visiting cupcake bakeries in Los Angeles and Las Vegas. "This would be so much fun," she recalls thinking.

She will be baking seasonal cupcakes that capitalize on locally grown produce and other high-quality ingredients. Her partners are her husband, Gerald Collins, and one of her former students from American River College, Kristine Bertram.

Cupcakes they've been warming up with include poppyseed with lemon curd, apricot and almond, banana with caramel filling, pineapple upsidedown, lemon meringue, cotton candy, rocky road and chocolate mint.

Is there a story behind the name Babycakes? "When I was 19 or 20 and in San Francisco, I got on a bus and sat by a man who worked at a muffin place called Babycakes because they were just little cakes. I thought that was the most clever thing I'd heard in my life," says Urkofsky, sho also has been a chef at Cafe Bernardo and Tango Bistro & Bar in Sacramento.