LAist has a great roundup of photos and judges' takes on the LA Cupcake Challenge, but this photo in particular of blogger Caroline on Crack, was particularly fun. (via Eating L.A.) All images by Elise Thompson from LAist
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Lesley Bargar of Los Angeles magazine writes:
I lost it with the chocolate cupcakes pretty fast. After choco-cake number five I thought I was done for. Thank god for the tart, lemon butter-cream cupcake from Vanilla Bake Shop—it brought me back to life. If you plan on eating more than 20 cupcakes at once sometime in the near future, I advise you to go fruity.
Pat Saperstein of Eating L.A. wrote:
KTLA's Sam Rubin asked what we thought the criteria should be. "Frosting." "Cake - dry or moist?" "Ratio of frosting to cake!," the judges agreed.
While some of the usual suspects (Joan's on Third, Auntie Em's, Dots) were not participating, 10 of us bloggers and foodwriters (and Sam) got a chance to try cupcakes from some lesser-known places. My favorite cupcake -- and I'm usually not really a big chocolate fan -- was the Mandarin orange chocolate cupcake from Essential Chocolate Desserts in Culver City, which reminded me of Baskin Robbins Mandarin orange chocolate sherbet. My second favorite was the Key Lime from Vanilla Bakeshop, and I think my third favorite, raspberry lemon curd, was also from Vanilla. Theirs were among the prettiest, too.
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Tara Settembre of When Tara Met Blog says:
I was super excited to be one of the official judges and prepared by not having breakfast that morning, however nothing could have prepared me for tasting 30 different cupcakes in one afternoon!!...
After the first few we started cutting them in half and sharing with the judge next to us and by the end I was even spitting them out after I put them in my mouth, like it was a wine tasting or something. It was harder than I thought, but heck if someone has to do this dirty job, I'll gladly do it ;) One of the judges likened the cupcake judging to a "competitive sport" as we trudged along. I thought that was funny so I wrote the comment down. Besides us judges everyone there could vote too and sample just as many cupcakes if they chose to.
Speaking of LA, don't forget out June 1st meetup at Lark Cake Shop at 1! I have 5 days in LA and plan to try as many cupcake bakeries as I can.
Lesley Bargar of Los Angeles magazine writes:
I lost it with the chocolate cupcakes pretty fast. After choco-cake number five I thought I was done for. Thank god for the tart, lemon butter-cream cupcake from Vanilla Bake Shop—it brought me back to life. If you plan on eating more than 20 cupcakes at once sometime in the near future, I advise you to go fruity.
Pat Saperstein of Eating L.A. wrote:
KTLA's Sam Rubin asked what we thought the criteria should be. "Frosting." "Cake - dry or moist?" "Ratio of frosting to cake!," the judges agreed.
While some of the usual suspects (Joan's on Third, Auntie Em's, Dots) were not participating, 10 of us bloggers and foodwriters (and Sam) got a chance to try cupcakes from some lesser-known places. My favorite cupcake -- and I'm usually not really a big chocolate fan -- was the Mandarin orange chocolate cupcake from Essential Chocolate Desserts in Culver City, which reminded me of Baskin Robbins Mandarin orange chocolate sherbet. My second favorite was the Key Lime from Vanilla Bakeshop, and I think my third favorite, raspberry lemon curd, was also from Vanilla. Theirs were among the prettiest, too.
Tara Settembre of When Tara Met Blog says:
I was super excited to be one of the official judges and prepared by not having breakfast that morning, however nothing could have prepared me for tasting 30 different cupcakes in one afternoon!!...
After the first few we started cutting them in half and sharing with the judge next to us and by the end I was even spitting them out after I put them in my mouth, like it was a wine tasting or something. It was harder than I thought, but heck if someone has to do this dirty job, I'll gladly do it ;) One of the judges likened the cupcake judging to a "competitive sport" as we trudged along. I thought that was funny so I wrote the comment down. Besides us judges everyone there could vote too and sample just as many cupcakes if they chose to.
Speaking of LA, don't forget out June 1st meetup at Lark Cake Shop at 1! I have 5 days in LA and plan to try as many cupcake bakeries as I can.
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