I've had some success in creating cupcake recipes and maybe it has gone to my head as I've been considering becoming an Iron Cupcake. What's that? Basically, it's a monthly theme-based cupcake contest. I thought that before I would dive in, I should check out the local Iron Cupcake SF for a little reconnaissance mission. I took two friends with me and we went to the city to taste and judge. Let me tell you, it was really hard to get volunteers to taste cupcakes. It was at the Leland Tea Company which was a cute venue, but a little small for the number of people that showed up.
There were 20 entries, some good, some bad and all made with squash. My favourite was a pumpkin chocolate chip cupcake. It was moist and had a nice balance of flavours and was made with good chocolate. That entry came in second.
I learned that you have to make sure the cupcake itself is great - great flavour, great consistency, great idea. The other important thing was not to have the icing overpower the cupcake. There was a to-die-for caramel frosting, but I have no idea what the cupcake tasted like, as all I could taste was the frosting.
The aftermath:
Next time, we'll bring moist towelettes to battle the stickiness, clipboards for our ballots, and milk hats (like a beer hat, but with milk). And maybe some insulin.
