A few weeks ago I went out for my best friends birthday. She requested vegan cupcakes. While at first I cringed, I finally decided to adapt a recipe I wanted to try into a vegan recipe. It was for the Meringue Hi-Hat Cupcake found on my newly discovered favorite cupcake blog - HowToEatACupcake. So I made the cupcakes, and they were a huge hit!
While we were at dinner, my friend Corey asked me if I had heard about this Capital Cupcake thing-a-ma-jiggy. So of course I went home and googled it and up popped CUPCAKE CAMP! http://cupcakecamp.ca/ . Oh boy, was I excited to see this.
Basically, "CupcakeCamp was originally the brainchild of a group of folks in San Francisco. The idea was to bring together cupcake lovers, bakers, and eaters. The first Canadian CupcakeCamp took place in Toronto at LabSpace Studios on January 25, 2009. CupcakeCamp is an opportunity for our community to come together and share their enthusiasm for cupcakes with all proceeds going to Ottawa’s Woman Alive/Femme Active Program! Everyone who brings cupcakes will have the opportunity to brag about their creations which will be presented to the Tasters for a cupcake tasting frenzy!"
CupcakeCamp Ottawa will be taking place on March 29th, 2009 at Jack Purcell Community Centre from 2-5 pm. It's $5 to get (with all the proceeds going to Woman Alive/Femme Active Program) and you can eat all the cupcakes you want!! How cool is that!!
So, I registered as a baker and submitted my 2 recent favorite cupcake creations: The Bacon Cupcake and a Caramel Apple Crumble cupcake. All I did was tell them what kind I would be bringing, no photos, no recipes, nothing! (Although I've included pictures here of the cupcakes!)
Last Friday I got a "Media Request" email from a reporter at the Ottawa Citizen telling me that he wanted to write an article about CupcakeCamp from the points of view of two of the competitors and the organizers gave him my email address. Naturally at first I thought this was some crazy guy who somehow got my email address and wanted to meet me to do 'an interview' and then chop me up into little bite sized pieces and eat me! After my wave of paranoia subsided, I contacted the organizers and they confirmed that YES they had given the reporter my name and that they were really sorry that they didn't give me a heads up warning! The reporter had requested 2 bakers that the organizers considered unique to the event, and they thought my submissions were in their top favorites, so they gave him my name! Can you say FLATTERED??!! Hell ya!!
Seeing as I was being interviewed about cupcakes, I had to MAKE some cupcakes for this guy. So I made some Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcakes that I had made last weekend and were a HUGE hit. My mom had really wanted one, so she came over in the morning before the interview and picked up a few to take home to my dad, the vacuum cleaner.
I met with Bruce, the reporter, this past Monday at the Bridgehead around the corner (funny enough we live 3 blocks apart) and we talked about cupcakes and baking, and cooking - how long I've been baking cupcakes (ummm..2 months?!), why I like cupcakes, if I see a future in cupcakes, my background in baking and cooking, etc. etc. We both kept staring at the cupcakes that I brought, so we finally split one. It was definitely a rich treat for 10:30 in the morning. But he really liked it - which was great seeing as he's a baker himself but doesn't really like sweets or cupcakes...hmm... - and brought the remaining 2 to his food editor at the Ottawa Citizen! I pretty much rambled on for about an hour and every time he said he had to go and get back to work I would just start talking about something else. It was pretty funny thinking back on it.Anyway, the article is going to be in the Ottawa Citizen on Monday March 30th, 2009. I'll post a link to it when it comes out. Bruce will be coming by this Saturday to watch me bake. Uhhh...that'll be kinda weird, especially if he brings a photographer! I better get up early and make sure I look good!! I will be baking on Saturday and then doing the frosting and finishing touches on Sunday, with the help of my mom :) And then it's off to CupcakeCamp.
There are 4 categories that the cupcakes will be judged in:
1. Best in Show
2. Most Unique
3. Best Decorated
4. Best Chocolate
I'm hoping to win in all 4! Go big or go home, right?! Most of my friends already think I'm the Cupcake Queen and their Cupcake Hero, but I want all of Ottawa to this so too! :)
Come one, come ALL to CupcakeCamp next weekend! I look forward to seeing everyone there!
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