Can you keep a secret?

Firstly let me apologise for my photos - I still haven't replaced my broken camera so am relying on a pretty crappy phone camera - sorry - I hope to get a new camera this weekend.

I was approached via email a couple of days ago by We are Social asking if I was interested to receive a cupcake with a mystery ingredient

Given your expertise, we’d like to put your taste buds to the test by sending you one of them to try out as soon as they arrive. Rest assured there are no nasty surprises in store!

I was intrigued so gave them my work address and waited patiently for my cupcake. It arrived today much to the delight of our reception girls -they were ever so excited by the little mysterious note on it. I took a pic of the cupcake all nicely wrapped on  the kitchen table at work -  I should've incorporated more of our view in the photo - we have a wonderful view from our office.

Here's the cupcake slightly squished from a bit of a horrific journey home on the bus. Sorry cupcake. Still quite a pretty looking cupcake - and it had glitter on (my camera picks up naff all but it was there I promise), and I do like a cupcake with glitter on.

I spent a while sniffing it before eating it. Mainly to check it wasn't anything gross. I meant to confirm with them there was no seafood in there just incase I nearly died after a bite but I forgot. After a good five minute sniff I decided it definitely wasn't seafood. I could however smell something a little unpleasant but difficult to place. Not something sweet. Not something that should be in a cupcake.

I unwrapped it and it was quite an orangey/red colour with flecks of red in it. I got a bit excited that it may be chilli. It wasn't. I took a little nibble. Not a lot of flavour if I'm honest. But a massive lingering after taste of something wrong. I gave it 10 minutes (could still taste something) and went back for some more. By now I'd pretty much decided on either tomato soup or tomato ketchup from the after taste. I actually tried to make some tomato cupcakes on Sunday using the recipe from Baked and there was a similar after taste, although my tomato cupcakes were incredibly tomato'y and bright red so the after effects were much worse.

I had a little bit of the frosting to see if there was anything secret in there but it seemed to be cream cheese frosting and nothing else - very sweet though.

All in all the cake wasn't very appetising. The base was quite dry and the top was too sweet. And the odd smell was a little off-putting.

I shall post back when I find out what the secret ingredient is and why we were chosen to test these cupcakes.

In the meantime - what's the weirdest thing you've had in a cupcake? Or the weirdest thing you'd like to try and bake with? I think mine is still the bacon cupcake from Batch...shudder.

Oh and thanks to We are Social for thinking of me!

Update 9th Oct: I got an email yesterday from We are Social - the secret ingredient was indeed tomato ketchup so I was (kind of) correct! It is part of Heinz's Secret Ingredient campaign and the recipe for the Tomato Ketchup Cake can be found here (it's for a cake rather than cupcakes but you can adapt if you wish).