Okay, before I start bawling all over my keyboard, I'll get right to her celebration. I planned this party well ahead and ordered many items on Amazon. I have quite a trigger finger when it comes to Amazon, but in my defense, I don't get out to the stores much.
Cupcake Wars (the show) is an anxiety inducing race to bake and frost cupcakes in a short amount of time. Competitors have their own ovens, mixers-- you name it! This presents a small problem for the home kitchen. I have a large kitchen but not large enough for eleven girls to be running frantically through all at once. When planning the party, I tried to adhere as closely as I could to the true premise of the show while tweaking some of the practical and logistical stuff. There were multiple team members, only one oven, one mixer and each team had just one pan. I decided on buying cake mixes at that point-- it would reduce mess and eliminate the necessity of a mixer. I also decided to split the baking and decorating times. I made a large batch of simple vanilla frosting that I divided among them during the decorating portion.
The first thing I did when people arrived was choose a captain for each of the three teams. I did this based on experience I knew the girls had. Since most of the girls were 11-12 years old, I wanted at least one person on each team to really know what they were doing. It minimized help from me as I was hosting this crazy party while keeping my two year old out of all the goodies. I also wanted to encourage as much independence as possible. If all the girls had been experienced, we would have simply drawn names from a hat, which brings me to what we did next. I happily procured 5 aprons in 3 colors from Amazon (15 aprons < $50!). Each captain received either a blue, pink or purple apron and the rest were placed in a large bag that the remaining girls grabbed out of without looking. At this point, I gave them their guidelines, and asked them to spend five (I did time everything so it "felt" competative) minutes looking around the room at what was available and to start brainstorming. Then, for ten minutes, they came up with a plan for cupcakes and jobs. I wanted to encourage teamwork so one of their guidelines was that every person on the team contributed or they would be disqualified. Another guideline was that no one was to use the oven except me. This meant that when their cupcakes were ready to be baked, they had to wait until all the other team's cakes were also ready to go in (remember that minor detail of one oven?). That way no one gets burned or falls onto the open oven door rushing to get their cupcakes in or out and also keeps cupcakes from "falling" if the door is continuously opened. There were also no elimination rounds. Yes, it was a competition, but it was also a birthday party. One in which I still wanted all the girls to like each other at the end of. Finally, the clock officially started for their forty-five minutes of baking time.
Cupcake Wars always has a theme, and ours was SUMMER. There were two stations with ingredients I chose which made me think of summertime. This is the baking station which included white, vanilla and chocolate cake mixes, fresh fruit, extracts, liquid food coloring, and tons of mix-ins/ fillings along with whatever "tool" they would need to use them-- zesters, can openers, dry measuring cups, etc. Each team was required to create two entirely different cupcakes in forty-five minutes.These stations were shared by the teams and they were given strict instructions to return any unused items as soon as they were finished with them.
Eleven girls is a large number for an endeavor like this so I decided, since we have the space in our kitchen, to split the girls into three teams. Our dining table and two banquet tables were prepared with the same items; a muffin tin, cooling rack, eggs, liquid measuring cup, large bowl, muffin cups (aren't they cute?), whisk, rubber spatula, and scoop. As the competition carried on, I added a washcloth, kitchen towel, two loaf pans (for baking extra batter) and a smaller glass bowl (for melting chocolate). I happen to own a lot of loaf pans because I bake my own bread but if you don't, simply plan ahead and purchase extra disposable muffin pans. Offset spatulas and large solo cups were added to the tables during the decorating time so they could transform my simple vanilla frosting into their own brave creations.
Here is the display table. At the end of Cupcake Wars, the teams are to present their cupcakes on a special display. During the cupcake decorating time, each team used the items available here to make a stand unique to their take on the theme. Unfortunately, I took this picture before I finished filling the table-- their resources also included tape, construction paper, stickers and some natural elements I had hanging around from a past wedding cake I did.
These were some of the simple decorations.
Regular paper plates from the grocery store fit our color theme, napkins from Amazon, and the straws are from Marshalls. I bought a package of large solo cups in assorted colors for making root beer floats and mixing frosting that aren't pictured but were quite perfect.
This. THIS. Was the decorating table. It was filled with so many treats that even I felt overwhelmed. I think if I were to do this again, it would be pared down just a little. The girls stayed with fairly basic flavors, so this is definitely an area I could have cut corners on. Of course, we are still reaping the benefits of this table two weeks later ;) ...Aside from the obvious sugar, it included icing tips, sea shell candy molds, gel food coloring (I decorate cakes so I have a lot of this on hand), and a few inedible decorations.
Don't let the expressions in the following pictures fool you. These girls had a ton of fun, but they took the task at hand very seriously indeed.
The pink team; Elinor (my 8yr old daughter), Emily, and Hannah. This team, ironically, contained the oldest and youngest bakers.
The blue team; Anna, Chloe, Natalie and Anne
The purple team; Elise, Rebekah, Jillian and Sarah.
One of the guidelines was keeping a clean work station and being good stewards of the ingredients. The girls impressed me greatly with this and there was minimal clean-up afterward.
Enjoying some root beer floats, veggie sticks and bakery pizza.
These are the unfrosted, winning cupcakes; chocolate chip with graham cracker crust and blueberry cakes.
The teams were given points for taste, theme adherence, and presentation.
Two of the cutest judges ever to critique cupcakes. It's a tough job but someone had to do it.
The whole judging panel which also included my husband, Geoff, and our son, Andrew... heck, they're all pretty cute. My hubby told me every cupcake was delicious and deciding a winner was very difficult.
The purple team was the overall winner for their nature inspired stand and beautifully decorated and tasty summertime treats ; Smore's and Blueberry Pie cupcakes
I apologize for the quality of the photos. Our Nikon digital camera broke so I took these with my ancient android camera phone... keeping it real, folks.
Each girl received one of these fantastic Cupcake Swag Bags; apron with a personalized cupcake iron on transfer, wooden spoon, cupcake lip gloss, 2 cupcake rings, cupcake pencils and erasers, salt water taffy, and gourmet lollipop.
This party is surely going down in the history books as being one of the most fun. It's also going down as one that was the most work. And, the most money. Considering thirteen is special, I would totally do it again. If you're curious about how the day went... We started at 10 and needed every minute until 4pm. Here is the breakdown...
10:00 Arrival/ Teams chosen.
10:30-10:35 Look around at ingredients
10:35-10:45 Make a plan
10:45-11:30 Baking
11:30-12:30 Lunch
12:30-2:00 Gift opening and Games (ping pong/ foosball in basement)
2:00-3:00 Decorating/ Disply building
3:15 Official Judging
3:30-4:00 Cupcake tasting by all!
