Nuts about Iron Cupcake

So you may have read that Iron Cupcake has been cancelled next month. I and many other Iron Cupcake fans are hoping its just a holiday until Samantha, aka the Caked Crusader wants to come back as even after only baking twice for the event it has left a little cupcake shaped hole in my month.

As soon as I saw that the theme for July was "nuts and seeds" I got my thinking cap on. I first thought of something more classy like a rosewater and pistachio cupcake, similar to the beautiful one on the cover of Vegan Cupcakes Take over the World, however I couldn't ignore my one love in the nut world - peanut butter. I LOVE it. Adore it. Can't think of life without it. So before the winners were even announced I'd asked Ann Arbor Dennis (who was with me at the comp) to bring me some bags of Reese's peanut butter cups back from his trip home later this month as I was 99% sure I was going to use them in some way for my July entry.

Thanks to The Bleeding Heart Bakery for use of their Elvis photo

My thought was something along the lines of the Elvis cupcake from my newly acquired, and awesome, book Who you callin' cupcake by the owners of The Bleeding Heart Bakery in Chicago, Michelle and Vinny Garcia. The Elvis cupcake is a peanut butter, banana and bacon cupcake - except I was planning just to do a banana and peanut butter cupcake as I've had a bacon cupcake and quite frankly never need to try another. My plan was to top them with Reeses peanut butter cups, then I saw this

Thanks to Confessions of a Cookbook Queen for use of their photo and for such cuteness!

on the Confessions of a Cookbook Queen blog and I had a bit of an oh.my.god moment. A peanut butter cup covered in frosting to make a little mini cupcake - perfect as toppers for a peanut butter cupcake!

My other cupcake idea was something a bit adventurous for me, due to the sugarpaste topper. Something I've never done before. However I thought I'd share it with you incase you are and you fancy giving this cute topper a go!

First up was my other idea for a cupcake. I thought of candy/sweets I like with nuts in and the two contenders were Starbar (one of my favourite chocolate bars ) and Turtles

which I tried when in New York - yummy caramel chocolaty pecan goodness. I have several recipes for Turtle cupcakes in my cookbooks (including one yet again in Who you callin' cupcake), but if you fancy giving it a go and haven't got a recipe you could try this one from Bakers Royale - doesn't it look fabulous!

Thanks to Bakers Royale for the use of their photo - Chocolate Turtle Cupcake

My plan was to attempt to to top the turtle cupcakes with turtle toppers using the tutorial from Cake Journal - although I'm not sure they'd look quite as cute as these!

Thanks to Cake Journal for use of the Turtle photo

Alas now that the competition has been cancelled I wont be making either of these for the other Iron Cupcakers but I think I'm going to give the non-bacon version of the Elvis cupcakes a go, with the Reese's peanut butter toppers just to see if they taste as good as I imagine they will do!

I do hope Iron Cupcake is back soon as I have so many ideas and I love baking - it would be a shame not to be able to bake for others and also a shame if we lost such a fun competition from the London cupcake scene!

That's the curse of tequila

I practiced my cupcake for this months Iron Cupcake challenge (theme - celebration) a couple of times, but kept changing it and wasn't happy with the end result.

First I tried to make the margarita cupcakes using the recipe from Eat Me - all I can say is I will never use that book again. End of. Btw not sure why I've linked to the book, I'm not the only one with disasters from this book - unfortunately Twitter is awash with them too!

Then I had a thought, use a lemon cupcake recipe, but replace the lemon for lime. Which I did. The first time I did it I added tequila to the batter - you couldn't taste it as it cooked out. The second time I made the batter with milk, then made a tequila sugar syrup and spread it on top. Unfortunately I felt this just made them sweet but it was too late as it was the day of IC and it was either carry on or chuck them. I carried on and made the frosting. I made a lime, tequila and cointreau (ie a margarita) butter frosting with a bit of lime zest grated in. We packaged them up and set off for Iron Cupcake.

When we arrived there were already a few people there but we managed to get a good seat and get the cakes prettified up with their cocktail umbrellas (I know how original - I had intended to get some cute toppers from Bake it Pretty but left it too late to do an order). I already had my eye on the creme de menthe cupcake - my mum is always taking the mickey out of me cuz I like CDM mixed with Baileys - yum!

More and more people arrived, but I think there were more eaters and less bakers than last time. This could perhaps explain the scrum when the "you can begin eating" announcement was made. I gave up after a while as people were just grabbing mounds of the same cake and passing others to friends in what can only be described as rather selfish manner. While myself and a friend stood waiting with others who didn't really feel the need to push I counted 4 of the same cakes on one girls plate, as she stood passing at least two from each plate to friends behind - the same group ended up wasting quite a lot of cake, which as a baker who uses really high quality ingredients I find heartbreaking. Thankfully for our table Manny, Lucy and Dennis weren't quite so reserved and managed to get us a few cakes although we missed out on trying quite a few, including the amateur winner, which we had our eye on. We did manage to get a few - most of which were shared between 6 of us. My favourites of the night were the celebrations (with actual celebrations baked in), the creme de menthe and the apricot rice pudding.

Amateur runner up was the orange cake in ice cream cones with the flake - Manny and Dennis really enjoyed this one - I found it a little sweet. These were made by Rosalyn and really were very cute!

Amateur winner - pink champagne and strawberry (we didn't get to try it boo) was made by Andrea.

Andrea was also the winner of the special first birthday category of prettiest cupcake was the Happy Birthday cupcake - this was also my friend Dennis's favourite cake of the night and a well deserved winner - very cute and everything was edible!

Runner up in the professional round - peanut butter 4th of July celebration cupcakes. This one was very yummy and Manny loved this one, as did I.

Winner in the professional was the rice pudding and apricot (top left of pic) - so thankful I got to try this as when you read the name you think "really" but when I tried it I thought "wow" - really nice, moist, flavoursome with lovely juicy apricot bits! The lady who baked this (sorry I didn't get her name) based the cake on food she fed her children when they were one years old which is a lovely idea. I was very glad she won!

Finally special mention goes to Gemma for the decoration of her brownie cupcake. She was late arriving and there was quite a scrum to get one of her cakes and thankfully Manny managed to get one which we shared between the 6 of us - the topping was fab and had a special surprise of popping candy inside. You can see better pics of the cake on Gemma's site - sorry it was a bit of a quick snap - was worried someone might come and snatch it ;)

All in all I really do enjoy Iron Cupcake but it really saddens me to see food go to waste in the way we spotted on a couple of tables. I'm not sure how you can stop people being so greedy, perhaps one way would be to put a tray of cupcakes on each table so they can try one of each flavour? Then go back for more if they want to? And I don't want to appear like I'm just being picky but it really is annoying as a baker to see people putting cakes into tins to take home even when they've been specifically asked not to. I'm not the only person that noticed it last night (in fact it was pointed out to me by someone else) and from speaking to another baker its the same group that were doing it last time - seriously guys isn't it a little bit sad to go to such a wonderful and joyous event as a cupcake competition and steal?

I honestly love Iron Cupcake and all respect and thanks to Sam (aka the Caked Crusader) for organising it but I really do hope some of these issues can be sorted out - I felt a bit upset last night that I dragged friends over from Essex (and America!) to eat about 1/6 of a few cupcakes rather than the cupcake extravaganza they were expecting! I hope people whose eyes were a bit too big for their belly and left a lot of cake sat uneaten on their table read this and rethink their actions for next time.

Make mine a double

As soon as the Iron Cupcake challenge for June was announced "celebration", the three main things I like to celebrate with went through my mind.

1. Manowar - I wasn't what kind of cupcake I could make to signify a sweaty, leather clad, metal band, nor if such a cupcake would appeal to all,

2. Cupcakes - obviously! Birthdays, wedding anniversary's, Christmas, Easter, valentines, weekends, wet days, sunny days, basically any excuse for a celebration = a good excuse for a cupcake. However cupcakes are kind of a given as its Iron Cupcake so, again no,

3.Booze - and lashings of it. Preferably in a frozen cocktail concoction or involving hard liquor!

So I began some boozy cupcake trials. Not all of them successful.

First up - Jack Daniels and Coke cupcakes as pilfered from the Eat Me! book by Xanthe Milton. Although pilfered I did change it slightly and add a touch more Jack Daniels.

This was quite a tasty cake, although I found the cupcake base itself a little boring - I should've bunged a bit of JD in there or some chocolate chips to make it a bit more chocolaty. The frosting was basically melted choc, icing sugar, coke and JD. I added a bit more than suggested here as I tried it and it was a v.faint JD taste. In the end I may have gone a tad overboard as they had quite a kick and I may have got a friend slightly tipsy on the one she had! All in all they were quite tasty, boozy cupcakes but nothing special, and now I've learned how to pipe in a pretty(ish) fashion I like to do that rather than just the old method of slap it on which I had to do with these.

Finally the recipe calls for you to add black food colouring to turn the chocolate frosting black - I'm really not sure why as that is just quite absurd isn't it? Anyhow I didn't - I have black food colour but to me a chocolate frosting should be chocolate coloured.

If you're a fan of JD I would recommend these cakes but perhaps add a shot of JD to the base to give it a bit of a kick!

I am Iron Anne \m/

Yesterday was my Iron Cupcake debut and I LOVED it. I was originally quite nervous (I get shy in crowds) but my cakes turned out quite well and looked rather pretty, if I do say so myself, and seemed to be gobbled up by the others at the event so all was good.

The theme for this month was fruit, and as I decided to enter quite late on in the month and didn't really have time to try out anything new (I had toyed with a bounty type cupcake with coconut - my favourite of all fruits) I opted for one of my favourite cupcakes I've ever made - the sticky toffee pudding cupcake with caramel frosting.

Iron Cupcake is held in a really nice little venue just near Moorgate/The Barbican called The Cuban. When we arrived we were greeted by a couple of lovely young men who gave us our stickers (Manny was rather chuffed with his "eater" one - I think he should wear it always!) and then we went off to register and have my cupcakes photographed professionally! I met Samantha, Iron Cupcake organiser (and boy is she organised as the event is HUGE and ran totally smoothly - even with loads of keen cupcakes!!). She was really lovely, remembering Manny's name from my blog and calling us cupcake celebs - this was also when my lovely cupcake cases from Eloise (Gourmet Cupcake) got their first compliment of many!

By the time my chums arrived and the eating commenced I'd given up trying to count how many people there were - lots! And loads of gorgeous entries both amateur and professional (I'd say approx 30 amateur and 8 or so professional but check out the official Iron Cupcake blog if you want to know more). I tried to get some pics of all the entries but as usual excitement and my crappy camera didn't really mix. The cupcake creations were amazing - a veritable greengrocers of fruity flavours - coconut, key lime, gooseberry, lemon, strawberry, St Clements, tayberry, strawberry, black forest gateaux, rhubarb, watermelon, blackberry...I could go on - there were loads and only one other sticky toffee pud. I'd thought about making a banoffee cupcake but assumed lots of people would, yet I don't think there were any - maybe everyone thought the same?

My entry in all its pretty glory - was v.proud to see them looking so pretty amongst so many other pretty cakes :)

Stunningly pretty strawberry dream vegan cupcakes from Ms Cupcake - she was one of my two votes for the professionals - gorgeous cake and I shall be visiting her stall in Greenwich v.soon! Btw the cakes were so yummy that I had to check with the baker that they were vegan - not that I think vegan cupcakes are bland but the frosting was so creamy I had to check! Delish and I urge everyone to try them!

This is who my other vote went to - winner of the professional category - Eloise from Gourmet Cupcake - typically I f**ked up the picture. Please forgive me - they were gorgeous - not only to look at but to eat as well. Moist flavoursome cake with tayberry filling and absolutely divine frosting. A well deserved win!
A really pretty key lime cupcake - this one caught my eye and was the first cake I made a grab for when the scrum that commenced when tasting began!

Another that caught my eye when I arrived - the black forest gateaux - there were two black forest cupcake - both yummy!

These were myself and my chum Dennis' favourite - coconut high hats. I wanted to find out who baked these as they were awesome! Great base with a marshmallow and chocolate topping covered in coconut - I could've eaten several of these! If anyone reading made these or knows who did please let me know! I may have to try my hand at baking them if not - they were lovely!

Another of my favourites - lemon meringue - lovely base with a really flavoursome lemon curd in the middle topped with sticky chewy yummy meringue!

This was the runner up in the professional category - St Clements - we didn't' get a chance to try it- the horror! But it was very pretty!

The winner in the amateur category, the beautiful and fabulously frosted watermelon. Again sorry about the pic! This was a lovely cake and the watermelon really came through in the cake - lovely moist base with gorgeous frosting. A well deserved win.

As you can see there were so many lovely cupcakes to choose from it was very difficult to choose which ones to vote for, and to eat. My friend Lucy went a bit mad and got loads - and turned a bit green towards the end of the night. I was quite sensible - tried as many as I could - either having a bite of one (or half if I really liked them) then passing it onto Manny. He was another whose eyes were bigger than his belly and kept eating well after he was full, with lots of encouragement from one of the organising guys!

After the eating, came the voting. Each baker got one set of votes (2 professionals and 3 amateurs), as did each table. Once we'd cast our votes we sat around having a good chat about which we preferred and some of us having another cake/finishing off what we started once we got a second wind.

After a short vote count the winners were announced and everyone seemed happy - except one girl who seemed perturbed to be second - which was odd - I was happy just to have taken part. I was chuffed that Gourmet Cupcake won with their tayberry.

So, the prizes were awarded and stuffed full of cupcakes and happy we headed into the night.

Next month is the first anniversary of Iron Cupcake and the theme is "celebration" - I'm already wondering what to bake! Hope to see you there.

Btw if you are interested in where the title for this blog post came from click here.

Iron Cupcake London

I recently discovered the Iron Cupcake London website and I think I may take part in next month's cupcake challenge as it's to make a cupcake of one of my favourite things...dessert! Dessert and cupcakes...double yum!

ICL Challenge III: Dessert

Think of your favourite dessert and turn it into a cupcake. Make one batch (i.e. 12) of cupcakes interpreting the theme of “dessert” in any way you wish…

On the night everyone will have a say in declaring the winner, who walks away with the ICL Winner’s rosette plus a cupcake themed goody bag (presented in the much-coveted ICL bag!).

Event details:

Monday 3 August 2009

6.00pm – 8.30pm

Barrowboy & Banker pub, 6-8 Borough High Street, SE1 9QQ

Entry fee: £5 – even if you don’t wish to enter the competition why not come along to taste the cupcakes? (Entry fee includes tea or coffee)

Please email me or leave a comment on my Caked Crusader blog, to let me know if you plan to enter or just come along to eat. Everyone welcome - particularly hungry people!

You can check out previous winners on the Iron Cupcake website.  I've already decided what to bake - I'm going to practice next week and decide whether to take part -plan to definitely pop along to the pub to test the entries even if I decide not to bake this time! Fingers crossed my ideas work out! Think I might be able to drag Manny along to this also as he loves this pub...they have ale and pie (and now cupcakes!) ...all of his favourite things!

Thanks to the Caked Crusader for the use of her Iron Cupcake logo!