There was a rush at Cupcake Espresso yesterday as more than 3600 cupcakes were prepared for Valentine's Day.
Rose cakes, sugar cookies and dried flower posies from a local supplier will line the shop displays this morning.
Yet for the family-owned business, work on the Valentine's range started months ago.
"Usually the senior bakery team - the decorators, bakery manager and food scientist - will all put together a mood board ... the team have a team meeting on what we're vibing from everyone's mood board and we create [the range] from that," Natalie Baker from the company's operations said.
"Our flavours this year are quite straight forward. [We have made] our original triple choc, our vanilla cupcake flavour into the Valentine's range and we've got our brownie," Mrs Baker said.
Valentine's can also receive a posy box, complete with six cupcakes and dried flowers to keep.
"We wanted to do something a little different this year, where you can eat it, but also keep it," Mrs Baker said.
The expansion of Cupcake Espresso's Valentine's range comes at a whopping time of spending for Australian consumers.
The Australian Retailers Association estimates $485million will be spent nationally today, up 16.9% from last year. 29% of the gifts will be food and 42% flowers.
For Australia-wide brand Roses Only, located locally in Mayfield, today marks a huge uplift in orders.
"In Newcastle specifically, order volumes jump up enormously," she said. "[We're] doing more than one week's orders in one day."
Roses Only just sells "traditional, long stem" roses today, to give customers the best chance at securing an order.
Roses are brought in from Ecuador, which Ms Taggart says is the most premium place for growing worldwide.
"The farms that we buy from are at altitudes of 3000 meters plus, which means they're growing those roses for about 100 days."
The flowers are flown over as tiny buds and placed in cool conditions so they bloom just before customers receive them.
"We're all sweating on the last day," Ms Taggart said. "But we love it."
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