cupcake clash 2009: chocolate, butter cream, and...mustaches?

It's been two days since the SF Food Wars Mini Cupcake Clash and the dust has finally settled here in the Double the Yum household. The dishes are clean, the serving platters have been stowed away, and the remaining cupcakes have finally been eaten. All in all, it was a crazy awesome experience. I LOVE the concept of food challenges and think organizer Jeannie Choe is the bomb. TICK TICK.

The line outside the Stable Cafe started forming 30 minutes before the doors even opened. Look how far back it goes!

Obvi a lot of San Franciscans love mini cupcakes (and rightfully so!).

My BFF Kate (above) of So You Think You Can Blog came out to support It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time! and subjected herself to a food coma in the process. I had a great time competing but wish all the competitors had arrived earlier so I could have gotten a good look at EVERY entry. I think I captured most of them, but I did miss a few here and there because once the Clash began it was too hectic to sneak away from our table. For a full list of competitor names and their entries, go here.

Team Sweetiecups: La Vie en Brie. They even had small shots of wine to go with it! Such a cute idea.

Team The Dynotologists: Green Tea Cupcakes of Glory.

Team The Muffin Tops: Mocha Mania. This team was a couple of young girls (12-13 maybe?), they were so cute!

Team Nali Cupcakes: Bombay Elvis. Such a fab selection of vegan treats!

Team Full Windsor: Sparkling Fruit Cupcakes. Okay, this guy RULED. Seriously. I love a man in a suit, but a man in a tux...with cupcakes...AND champagne?! Dream.

Team TimeCube: Autumn Apple.

Team Chomp: Viva Currito! These minis had a tiny churro on top! To. die. for.

Team Zaftig Sweets: So What Spiced Mocha.

Team HunnyBunny: Piggycakes. These minis had maple syrup (I believe) and a bit of bacon on top. Not quite sure since I don't eat meat and didn't try them!

Team Pound: Fromage A Trois. Bahaha, love the play on words. These were our neighbors (HI!) and also one of the few savory entries...they had three cheeses and some bacon. I didn't try them but I heard great feedback.

Team Little Miss Muffin: Tiny Treasures.

Team Mustache: Guiness Gasm. Clearly I was OBSESSED with these cupcakes. Effing mustaches?! FOR REAL??? So epic. The two lovely team members were super sweet, too!

LOL. These ladies rocked it.

Now...for the winning entries!

Team Cinnaholic Sweets: Blueberry Dragon Fruit Chocolate Ganache Cakes.
Winner: Photographer's Choice AND Judge's First Place

Team Hella Fat: My Grandma's Bananas. These minis were crazy delish. I also had the chance to speak with the team members briefly and they were very very nice! They def earned their prizes.
Winner: Judge's Second Place AND People's Choice First Place

Team Mission Minis: Cinnamon Horchata.
Winner: Judge's Third Place

And of course, there's Team Double the Yum with their People's Choice Second Place Winner It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time! That's my grammy and mom in the pic above! Thanks for coming out and supporting us! I'm the twin with red hair, haha.

More love from our fans! Check out the super cute cupcake apron I'm rocking...Kate made it! Big thanks to the Fosty Ladies who also came out to eat our cupcakes and vote for us! Love you all so bad.

If any competitors/Clash attendees have more pics up/recipes to share...leave a comment or send an e-mail and I'll link back to you in a future entry!

strawberry is back & battling a food war in SF!

So...my "few days of moping around" turned into several weeks of moping around, but I think the pity party is finally over. I still want to write a bit more about my last few Chinese experiences because I couldn't while I was there and I never finished my top ten list from my Xi'an/Beijing vacay. But...that will be for another day.

This past weekend, Twin & I competed in a Mini Cupcake Clash! in San Francisco put on by SF Food Wars (my internal links aren't working for some reason, the site is www.sffoodwars.com). There were 22 competitors, some were even representatives from actual bakeries, and every entry was completely different. Most mini cupcakes were sweet, but there were a couple of savory competitors which...I don't believe in. After all, a savory cupcake is just a muffin, isn't it? Here's a selection of 19 of the entries--our entry is on the right nearest the anonymous hand:


Our team name was "Double the Yum!" and our entry was "It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time" a cupcake infused with peanut butter and strawberry jam in the batter with chopped up peanuts baked in as well, then piped with whipped strawberry jam (nothing added to it, just makes it smoother and easier to pipe), and topped with a rosette of peanut butter butter cream and a rosette of strawberry butter cream. We were required to make at least 70 mini cupcakes, but there were going to be 200+ people at the event so Twin decided to be on the safe side and make 500 mini cupcakes. She likes to be really safe.


So, like, I could eat an entire jar of peanut butter in one sitting (never attempted it, but I'm fairly confident it would be possible) and I absolutely LOVE PB&J sammies so this was the most awesome mini cupcake entry ever. They seriously tasted exactly like a PB&J sammy...only better, which I didn't think was even possible.


We found some legit t-shirts on CafePress to represent team Double the Yum in style and Twin came up with a cute idea of re-creating the classic "It's Peanut Butter Jelly Time!" dancing banana for our table display. While Twin baked for approximately 11 hours straight, I spent my time crafting some PBJ banana men and providing moral support ("...so you're sorta almost done. Kinda.")


The banana men were our cheerleaders throughout the day, "Go team, go!"


The banana men totally stole the show! Several attendees asked us to sing the song and do the little dance and we were def all about it. I even caught a few people "secretly" videotaping me as I made our two hand-held banana men dance and sing. Our table display ROCKED the competition...no one even came close to be as themed and cute as we were.


I'll be posting a separate post with pictures of our competitors and the rest of the Mini Cupcake Clash. There were a lot of food bloggers and other members of the press in attendance, Twin & I were interviewed a few times:


Ha! I hope we end up in one of the zillion articles bloggers are going to write about this event.


The day was seriously SO MUCH FUN! Our friends and family came out to support us and we got to meet a lot of cool cupcake loving people. I was also psyched to meet several food bloggers, and one very famous cupcake blogger! Simply being given the chance to compete was an honor (there were a TON of entries), and it was shocking and wonderful to receive 2nd place for People's Choice!!! Here we are receiving our loot:


We got medals that have baking caps and whisks on them, a re-usable grocery bag (<3 it so bad!) $50 worth of Method cleaning products, $50 cold hard cash moneyz, a free one-year subscription to SF's 7x7 magazine, and two cupcake cookbooks! PLUS!!! We got to meet the famous Rachel from Cupcakes Take the Cake (www.cupcakestakethecake.blogspot.com)! She was totally fun and even grabbed a banana man for our photo op.