Drumroll!! Guess where we were today?

Today, Cupcakes Take the Cake was invited to participate in a top-secret event with Kelly Ripa (!!) and Electrolux, launching a Virtual Cupcake sale to help raise money to fight ovarian cancer.



This thrilled me on many levels: One, it's always great to see cupcakes in the news (and people enjoying the sweet treats); two, I had a chance to hang with Kelly Ripa, who was a complete and total doll; and three, this helps fight ovarian cancer, a deadly invasive disease that robs us of some of the finest women we know. Mothers, sisters, daughters and friends.

Legally, the invite and all information about it was confidential until this afternoon, hence my teaser post last night. And, the reason why Keavy of Kumquat Cupcakery knew about our secret (see the comments here) is that Kumquat Cupcakery provided delicious mini-cupcakes for the event!




The cupcakes were scrumptious, as always. Much love to our friend Kumquat Cupcakery!

Now, let me dish on Kelly Ripa. First of all, I am ashamed to admit I didn't exactly know who she was, as I don't watch TV (except for the news -- CNN and MSNBC -- and TV Food Network) and when I did discover who she is, I was a bit worried that she'd be a diva. (No names here, but I'm looking at you, Ms. Daytime TV Food Goddess on NBC...) I couldn't have been more wrong. Ms. Ripa was genuine, fun, witty and a complete sweetheart. She was a gracious hostess and completely flawless up close. She took the time to chat with me about our mutual love of Anderson Cooper (I'm still holding the torch for you, Andy!), our love of cupcakes, and whether you can eat food off the floor before the "5-second rule."




Also, she's got a cool tattoo on her leg, which I would not have expected:




Here's Nichelle, Kelly, and Rachel (you can't see me because I took the picture!):



And here's Rachel and Nichelle with some yummy Kumquat Cupcakery mini's:



We were fed:



and swag-bagged:



ate more cupcakes:



There's more to come, I'll be blogging about the swag-bag, with more shots of the event (you can see more images here, all photos by Stacie Joy), but I found this neat Cupcake Queen and Kelly Ripa video on the Electrolux website. It doesn't seem to be embeddable, more's the pity, so go here and click on the "Cupcake Queen" video.

On Valentine's Day, you can go to ElectroluxAppliances.com (or go to Kelly's site here), design and send a virtual (calorie-free!) cupcake to a loved one and Electrolux will donate a dollar to the Ovarian Cancer Research Fund (OCRF) for every cupcake sent. Yeah!

Oh! And, I'll be giving away the nifty cupcake tee shirt that I received at the event, to a random CTTC reader. More on that to come...

But I'll leave you with one or two last shots of the beautiful Kelly Ripa (wearing a custom piece from designer Azzedine Alaia):



and