Saturday Sweets: Bakers and Bloggers Boozy Baking Competition Part One
The food blogging community in Miami is a fairly close-knit group of great people – many of which I’ve grown to call some of my favorite people. Even though we are close, it doesn’t mean that we rule out a little friendly competition.
In honor of the 3rd Annual SoFlo Cake and Candy Expo coming up April 28-30, we ( the founders of the convention Melanie and Natasha of Sweet Life Cake and Candy Supply and a few of us working for the event ) decided to put together a Bakers and Bloggers Boozy Baking Competition taking place on three dates leading up to the actual SoFlo weekend as sort of a fun kick off.
This competition will consist of teams made up of one home baker and one local food blogger racing against the clock to create cupcakes that not only use a secret ingredient but also represent the variety of themes of this year’s SoFlo Cake Competition.
Last Saturday, Round One was hosted at Sweet Life Cake and Candy Supply in their baking classroom. The bloggers competing were: Geoffrey Anderson of Miami Food Pug, Jennifer Agress of DiningOut Miami, and Mitch Nover of Mitch&MelTakeMiami. The home bakers drew blogger names out of a mixing bowl to decide their teams. The secret ingredient was then revealed to be Rum Chata, a sweet liquor that tastes much like rice pudding with a hint of cinnamon and the theme was Art Deco.
There was also a table of surprise ingredients including Marshmallow Fluff, Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal, brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tarts, instant coffee, hazelnut spread, chocolate chips, cotton candy, peppermint sprinkles, dulce de leche, and many more. Each team needed to present 3 different kinds of cupcakes to the judges, all using Rum Chata, one surprise ingredient, and fitting into an Art Deco design. The teams had 45 minutes to come up with their recipes, decor, and plan of action. There was lots of chatter and drawings of cupcakes happening as each team decided what they would bake.
Once the 45 minute planning period was up, a new clock was set for 90 minutes. In this time the cupcakes needed to be baked and decorated. The teams rushed around and got straight to work. Time was called and everyone stepped away from their stations. Each team presented their cupcakes to the judges – I was very excitedly a judge representing MIAbites!
Cupcakes were judged individually on a 5 point scale based on:
Required Ingredient
Surprise Ingredient and whether or not the pairing made sense
Taste
Texture
Decoration
Incorporation of Theme
Team One: Jennifer of DiningOut Miami (@jenniferagress) and Latoya of CL Butler’s Cupcakery (@clbutlers_cupcakery)
Vanilla cupcake with a brown sugar cinnamon Pop Tart surprise and Rum Chata buttercream
Rum Chata chocolate chip cupcake with chocolate Rum Chata frosting and crushed peppermint sprinkles
Banana cupcake with a hazelnut marshmallow crème filling, Rum Chata and dulce de leche buttercream with crumbled Cinnamon Toast Crunch cereal topping
Team Two: Mitch of Mitch&MelTakeMiami (@mmtakemiami) and Lena of Gotita de Bella (@gotita_de_bella).
Cinnamon Rum Chata cupcake with Cinnamon Toast Crunch icing
Chocolate Coffee Rum Chata cupcake with chocolate coffee icing
Banana Rum Chata cupcake with a dulce de leche surprise filling and Rum Chata buttercream
Team Three: Geoffrey of Miami Food Pug (@miamifoodpug) and Candice of Candy Cakes & More (@candycakesandmore).
Vanilla Rum Chata cupcake with a vanilla buttercream
Coconut Banana cupcake with Rum Chata buttercream and Cinnamon Toast Crunch filling
Coconut cupcakes with Rum Chata buttercream and a Rum Chata dulce de leche buttercream
And the winner was….. Team One! Jennifer from DiningOut Miami and Latoya from CL Butler’s Cupcakery are going to the finals on April 1st! Stay tuned to see how Round Two goes on March 11th from 1-4 pm at Sweet Life Cake Supply. Come cheer on your favorite baker or blogger! Spoiler Alert – I’ll be participating as a home baker in that round!
And SAVE The DATE for this year's South Florida Cake & Candy Expo from April 28th-30. For more information and tickets go to https://www.soflocakeandcandyexpo.com/