Cupcake Camp Atlanta

Hey everyone!

Early last week, one of my coworkers told me about Cupcake Camp Atlanta. Within 5 minutes, I was signed up as a competitor! The idea behind Cupcake Camp is to bring cupcake enthusiasts together for what amounts to a cupcake feast. The event was hosted (for free!) at a local coffee shop called Octane, and bakers around Atlanta brought cupcakes to be eaten and voted on in 3 categories: taste, appearance, and unique-ness of flavor.

I decided to bake my favorite kind of cupcake for the competition, Black and Whites (a chocolate cupcake with a cream cheese chocolate chip center). Since B&W is such a rich flavor, I chose to make minis instead of 'bigs'. [These are cupcake terms, people.] I had enough batter to make a few bigs as well, so I spent Sunday morning making/decorating all of them.

For decoration, I decided to use a technique that's super cute--but also very time consuming. First you pipe the icing using a "doo-doo tip," then you push upside down mini chocolate chips into the icing in a polka-dot fashion. [I have to say, I didn't realize how many cupcake terms I used until this post.] When my bosses at the bakery used to ask us to polka dot the cupcakes on a Saturday, it was pretty much like they'd just asked us to stab ourselves in the eyes. The process takes a while, but it does make for a really "aww" worthy cake.

 Here are some of the other competitors' cupcakes (from right: Mexican Hot Chocolate, mine, Caramel, Pina Colada, Pumpkin Spice, and Boston Creme).

More cakes (from left: Red Velvet, Sweet Potato Bourbon, Limon w/ Coconut Vodka frosting, In a Jiffy Strawberry, Lemon curd w/ Marshmallow frosting, and Earl Grey Lavender).

Here's my entry, number 1. 

A few of our friends stopped by to taste/vote/photograph. Fortunately they took some excellent pictures for us living our 'secret cupcake lives.'

 Typical crazy.

I promise you we did not coordinate the above photos (also, check out that gnome).

Cupcake FEAST.

I'm proud to say that I won 2nd in the flavor category! Here's my prize:

Anyone who's seen my baking collection knows that it's pretty extensive, but I don't have an individual cupcake holder yet, so I was quite excited about this cutie!

This weekend we were also busy decorating for Christmas, so I'll be posting about what we did later in the week.

Also, Charlotte says hi.

-Kinsey