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Last Sunday Drink:Eat:Play hosted a Cupcake Challenge at the Montmartre Lounge. The event was sponsored by Fiji Water, K&L Wine Merchants and CozmoDeck. A portion of the proceeds will be donated to the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric Aids Foundation. Our own Lindsay William-Ross and Caroline-on-Crack were on the official judging panel, along with Sophie Gayot (who we all just watched frighten the finalists on Hell's Kitchen this week), Tara de Lis from Citysearch, Sam Rubin from KTLA, and five others. Guests were also given ballots to vote in three categories. Now without further ado, the winners (full list below gallery). Drumroll please...
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Best Traditional:
1st place: Vanilla Bake Shop Red Velvet (judges' choice)
2nd place: Yummy Cupcakes Red Velvet
3rd place: Hotcakes Red Velvet (public's choice)
Best Original:
1st place: Sugar Jones "Paradise" (judges' choice)
2nd place: The Oinkster Peanut Butter and Jelly
3rd place: Essential Chocolate Desserts "Blood Orange Fudge"
**Public's choice was Leyna's Strawberrilicious
Best Overall:
1st place: Leyna's Kitchen "Strawberrilicious"(public's choice) (picture attached)
2nd place: Sugar Jones"Paradise" (judges' choice)
3rd place: The Oinkster Peanut Butter and Jelly
Judging worked on a points system. It might have been easier if guests had been given a list of entries to rate rather than trying to remember all of the names and who made which Red Velvet. Good luck juggling a plate of cupcakes, glass of wine, camera, pen and notepaper in a crowd like that. As I wound my way through the crowd to the patio, a cupcake toppled off my plate. Everyone around me was dismayed and sympathetically cried out, "Oh no!!!" As if there weren't eight thousand more where that came from.
All of the guests received a CozmoDeck, kind of a cross between an Entertainment Book and ValuPak coupons. You can carry a few favorites in your wallet, so they are very handy. Each card offers 15-dollars off a bill of 50 dollars or more. I should have hung around and traded them like baseball cards to collect all the Ciudad coupons.
Where to get a Strawberry Cupcake Tree: Letu Floral Designs and Gifts
For some of the other judges' take on the festivitites:
Tara of When Tara Met Blog
Lesley Bargar of Los Angeles Magazine
Pat Saperstein of EatingLA
Caroline of Caroline on Crack
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Please stop encouraging the proliferation of these god-damned cupcake shops.
yummm ok another "2008 list to try" to be made now :-)
I think Vanilla Bake Shop is okay, but I cannot resist Susiecake's red velvet. It's even better the next day (I don't know why that is.)
And to cupcake haters -- listening to you guys kvetch is way more boring than anything we could say about cupcakes! Go have sushi or something.
I agree Jacy, it's like making fun of cats - too easy of a target and something that brings happiness to so many women.
This was definitely not the definitive competition, but the best of whoever showed up, which left Sprnkles, Susiecakes and Auntie Em's out in the cold. I believe MILK who rsvp-ed may have been a no-show. I don't have one of their cards stuck to the side of my purse with icing.
i love your photos! the one of Caroline on Crack is hilarious! go CoC! i have more pics on my blog but ya pretty much covered it!
And also, I was talking with a couple of friends about the judging of this competition. Ok, so it works on a points system. But no one gets to see that rubric or the weight each vote is given, and so I have no idea what the results even mean. Do judge points add up to more than public points? Why is the public's choice for Original not even in the Top 3? I'm confused. Please enlighten me, someone! :)
I'm not sure why Red Velvet's are liked so much.
Even for me, one Red Velvet is just too much sugar.
It was also pretty funny when I took some cupcakes on a recent visit to Japan - the Red Velvet was the least liked of the bunch (the cupcakes were from Delilah's in Echo Park). Over there it was like a sugar m80 in your mouth, especially since their sweets hardly have any sugar at all.
The other ones though, were a huge hit. They could not believe that something like this hadn't been imported into Japan yet. Seriously, there are NO cupcake bakery shops in Tokyo, (I found ONE on my last day - Notting Hill Cupcakes), so this was like discovering the holy grail of sweet, delicious American candy treasure. So for anyone going to Japan, take some cupcakes, you'll make friends really quick.
I have tried many of the cupcakes at Vanilla, and I thought they were all very mediocre...and very expensive!
Happygomarni: the judging confused me too. I understand it was 1st= 3 point. 2nd= 2 points 3rd= 1 point. I thought they might have seperate winners, like judges 1st 2nd 3rd and guest?public 1st 2nd 3rd.
It appears they have weighed them heavier somehow, maybe multiplying by 10 or something. It is pretty amazing considering how many people were there that the public's favorite didn't even make the top 3.
I didnt know that cupcakes were such a touchy issue. I think they are damn tasty... period.
thanks for the link and it was nice meeting you!
Although I didn't think i'd want another cupcake for awhile, I still managed to eat one the next day for breakfast ;)
ewww sophie gayot
As a competitor, we were told that the judges votes counted 50% (they judged from blind tastings) and that the public's vote counted 50% (they were free to roam the event)with all points being equal.
So the most votes garnered first place.
The second highest number of votes - second place, etc...
So Elise was revealing who had been the judge's favorites vs. the public, not that one group's votes counted any more than the other's.
Anyway it was a fun event in which to participate and all the pastry chefs and bakers we met were really cool people.
I'm surprised the Vanilla Bakeshop ones didn't do better... although while doing the judging their Key Lime cupcake came around just when my digestive system was nearing full revolt mode, it was a really tasty cupcake, although, yes, very sweet. One of the reasons I think the unusual Mandarin-Pineapple-Pistachio concoction got top judges' honors is frankly because it was the lightest, least sugary one of the bunch, and when you have to eat 30 cupcakes (or bites of 30 cupcakes) anything that isn't mega dense or rich (or red velvet!) is a precious piece of relief. And it is, admittedly, the most unexpected one.
I think one of the reasons the judges and the public had a bit of disparity (not in "value" of votes, just pure preference) is that while the judges had to eat ALL the cupcakes (oh god my stomach is cramping in memory) while the public could eat whatever they pleased. I will admit I would have loved most of what I ate if I'd been eating just that ONE cupcake all alone with some coffee or milk as a single treat.