Cupcake contest

And the winner is....ME!! Woo! I mentioned that there was a cupcake contest between all the Kneaders pastry chefs. There are three of us at our store so we were able to enter three cupcakes. So last month the other pastry chef and I worked on them and came up with many designs and flavor combos. We picked two that we like and decided to enter them. Last week they came to pick up our entries. The first one we decided to do was a white cake with a little lemon flavor baked into it. After it was baked we dipped the bottom in white chocolate ganache, then filled it with raspberry filling. On top of the cupcake we layered white chocolate lemon truffle filling and put a swirl of raspberry whipped cream. I then put a curl of sugared lemon and some sugared lemon zest for a little flavor pop.
I think it turned out so pretty.












This cupcake won first place.
Click on it for screen size goodness.
The next one was a white cupcake with a chocolate dipped bottom, it was filled with vanilla mousse, then topped with raspberry filling then a swirl of whipped cream on top and a chocolate covered cherry on top. I don't have of pic of this one yet, I could kick myself for not taking pics when we made them.

I'm not sure if this one won second or third place.

The last cupcake was a complete after thought. We hadn't decided on a third design and Joy said whatever you want to do is fine, so instead of taking one of the designs we had done before I had an idea in my head I wanted to try.

We made a white cupcake, and dipped the bottom in chocolate, then I made some chocolate buttercream frosting. I piled it high in the center and smoothed the sides. I then made what I call chocolate "shards". I put a layer of chocolate on a baking sheet, let it cool and then broke it into long pieces. I didn't get a pic of the the ones I entered but here is some I did later that day for Jax's scout banquet. They don't look quite as good as the ones I made for Kneaders but you can kinda get the idea. I was so excited and happy we won 1st, 2nd and 3rd place out of 27 entries. I really didn't think we had a shot since the people that started Kneaders own a store in Provo and their daughter owns the one in Orem. I thought there is no way we have a chance. Woo! It totally made my day!