NCACS Cupcake Cocktail Challenge

Before I open the lid on all of the Cupcake details, I have to say that yesterday’s response to my “Triathlon Cake” was so flattering! Never in my wildest dreams did I think I would get that many comments or visitors! Thanks to everyone who stopped by, left a comment, and introduced me to the wild wild world of twitter! Tweets are kind of viral! (In a good way).

Back to Cupcakes!

So I was stoked to sign up for the Inaugural Cupcake Challenge! Each year from here on they are going to have a different theme; this year happened to be “Cupcake Cocktails”. Immediately I started to ponder some of my favorites and Irish Car Bombs were high ranking on the list! After many experiments with Guinness and Bailys I was pleased but not “excited” about them, so I moved on to creating other flavors.

Here I present to you my two final choices!

On the left is: “Bertie’s Hard Lemonade” which is a light lemon cake filled with a Citrus Vodka Lemon Curd, topped with Meringue, a lemon head, and red straw for garnish.  

On the Right: “Cherry Blossom-tini” which is a Cherry flavored cake filled with one whole Maraschino Cherry that was soaked in Triple Sec, and topped with a light and fluffy butter cream with a gum paste cherry blossom flower for garnish.

We started the morning with the National Half Marathon (that post will probably show up tomorrow) and to be frank, I waddled home after the race, slept, ate chipotle, then suffered through lower-back spasms as I baked for 5 hours- creating over 200 cupcakes!! Here’s the picture show of how it all went down! The Boss was a great helper and much like everything I do, it just wouldn’t have all worked out if he wasn’t around!

All gone! We sold out of all of our the cupcakes, and could easily have done more if we had baked them! Since it was the first year that they ran this event I think they were a little overwhelmed by the incredible turnout! They sold over 700+ tickets, and it was organized chaos! In the end, all I can say is that I would enter the challenge again in a heart beat! Plus the monies raised went to charity, who can argue with that?

Hope you enjoyed the cocktails! I’ll definitely be making these puppies again soon so stayed tuned!

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Cake Report: National Capital Area Cake Show Competition

WOW! What a weekend at my household this weekend! Incase you are not up to speed I’ll give you a quick recap! This weekend started off with National Half Marathon packet pick-up, entering (my very first cake competition) into the NCACS’s cake show, RUNNING the half marathon, baking over 200 cupcakes, competing in NCACS’s Cupcake Cocktail challenge, going to a 3 hour professional class on Air Brushing (Food grade), and finally checking out the award show for the weekend’s competitors/ decorators! If you think you’re tired from reading all of that, I’m exhausted…. and would do it all over starting tomorrow!

Obviously I am not going to blog ALL of that in one post, there is too much to say. Instead this week is going to have the wrap up of my cupcake cocktails, Air Brushing Class, and of course the Half Marathon! BUT for now I am way to excited to not to post my “Special Occasion/Novelty - Tiered” cake. I hope you enjoy!

I discovered NCACS (National Capital Area Cake Show) back in November but never thought much of it again until the new year rolled around. I registered first and then started pondering ideas for my cake theme. Sadly the only thing on my mind these days is Triathlon, and thus my inspiration grew from there.

 

I always imagined that a “Tiered Cake” would have to be at least 3 levels, and being so wrapped up the the tri world these days I couldn’t think of anything else in the world happening in 3s!

Starting from the bottom up was the swim, bike, run, and the cake topper was the grand finish! I promise to keep the chatter to a minimum and let you enjoy the process!

I had a blast making all of the wetsuits… not so much all of the hands! As shown in the second and third last pictures they were a little tedious! But in the end I think they really came out clean and I became much much more efficient at them!

On to the bike! (I actually became so engrossed in making the bikes that I forgot to take a lot of pictures along the way) But please take a peak at the pedal crank and water bottles on both bikes, they were my proudest features!!

 

Then I moved on to the runner! This is the cake topper and I knew it had to really be an eye catcher! Having never competed in a full ironman event (though sometimes I think being the cheering fiancée and training partner has to count as some sort of participant!) I have witnessed the finishing shoot pride and adrenalin and really wanted to do it justice.

(Come on, you know she needed a little “shape”)

Then comes all of the other details that Pull it all together!

(Conversation between me and the Boss/driver-)

ME: “Ray, please please drive slow and take it easy on the turns.”

Ray: “Yes Dear.”

(Last touches before leaving it for judging!)

I may or may not have used the cherry blossom trees to my advantage! I figured that they might draw a little extra attention with the home crowd, and they ended up be a really big hit! Though I will admit that the water cup trail from the aid station was a little feature that made me smile every time!

I’m sure by now you’re wondering “ how  long did that cake take?”, but it wasn’t that bad. It SEEMED like it took forever because I was putting in an hour of time here and there, and in the mean time the cake waited patiently on the kitchen table and counter! I think the person who suffered the most from the cake creation was The Boss; he loves to cook, and lately his space has been limited! But I have to give him a lot of praise because he was truly a good sport about his kitchen being short of destroyed over the past two weeks, and he is certainly my biggest supporter!

In the end I think he was pretty pleased! After all he did come to the award show with me!!

Here I am thinking I’m on top of the world because I WON! I won the 1st prize in my Category (The tiered occasion thing that I keep repeating)! But there were other categories as well in my Division (Adult Beginner) such as” specialty non-tiered”, “Under the Sea” (this was the theme this year), “Sculpted cakes”, and wedding cakes. In total there were over 50 some cakes in my division and to be honest when I dropped my cake off on Friday night, I double checked that I was in the right area!! These “Beginners” were pretty freakin’ fantastic! Intimidating too! They were all in Chef’s Jackets and had special cake carts/ carrying boxes. I was a little deflated!

Then the unthinkable happens (Literally, I didn’t know there were more awards other than “category awards”)! The Boss and I went to the awards ceremony to see the other winners cakes and clap for all of the contestants. I caught wind that I might actually get my picture on the slide show!

AND I DID! And then they announced “and the over all winner of the Adult Beginner Division is…”

MEEEEEE! WHAT???? HOLY CROW!

(Incase you are not the Food Network Geek that I am, that man is Norm. He Rocks. And he wins a lot of Live Challenges! I’m a big fan!)

That’s it folks! I’m exhausted! I really hope you enjoyed the journey of this cake; I had a blast making it! Be sure to poke back tomorrow, I’ll be posting about the Cupcake Cocktail Challenge! That too was a lot of fun… and I just may have created two of my favorite cupcake flavors!!

Thanks for stopping by!!!

(Also if you have e-mailed or commented lately and I haven’t gotten back to you, I apologize! This past week was crazy! I will get back to you this week!!)

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