Heaven must be missing some Cupcakes: The LA Cupcake Challenge

Stop for a minute and imagine your own personal heaven. Maybe there's some clouds, a few harps scattered about, possibly a dove. But now focus on the good stuff. If your heaven looks anything like mine, there are bites of deliciousness as far as the eye can see. I got a chance to actually experience a taste of heaven this past Saturday at Drink:Eat:Play's annual LA Cupcake Challenge.

The hallway outside the ballroom of the Renaissance Hotel was abuzz with excitement. Men and women of all ages clumped together, eagerly studying the ballots that foretold the deliciousness to come. We scanned the forty different flavors, the choices running the gamut from the traditional (chocolate, vanilla and red velvet), to the original (sticky toffee pudding, salted caramel), to the downright mysterious (sunday mimosa, pigs on tap.)

At four o'clock the doors were swung open and the mob swelled into the ballroom. Everywhere I looked mini cupcakes beckoned me with their come hither swirls of frosting. There were towers upon towers of the yummy treats. Just the thought of all that sugar was overwhelming! I grabbed a plate and made it to about three displays before it was full. Clutching the ballot in one hand and the plate in the other, I studied the sold out crowd and began to worry that the purveyors would run out of cupcakes before I'd had a chance to make my way around the room. Besides, I wanted to do this systematically, giving each cupcake it's due, rather then wolfing them down in an effort to get to all of them.

It was at this moment that I spied the very clever team from the CIA (the Cupcake Intelligence Agency.) This foursome had begun to set their plates down at an empty table, leaving one member of the team behind to guard their spoils. Seeing how many cupcakes they had already amassed, I decided to trust them with my little hoard and asked if I could join them. They graciously agreed.

With a home base established, I went about collecting samples from every display and leaving them at the table. The atmosphere in the room grew giddy as the first of many sugar highs began to set in. People's eyes twinkled as the bakers explained their wares. Strangers smiled at strangers as if to say, "Can you believe this is real?!" And everywhere you looked there was the breathtaking sight of mountains of mini cupcakes.

Having collected my treasures, I then went about the delectable task of judging the contest. The first challenge was figuring out exactly which cupcakes were which. The shops that had marked their cupcakes with some sort of label were much appreciated. Sometimes it took the CIA, myself, and our two other table mates to figure out which was which. Cupcaking is definitely a team sport! And now, dear readers, a confession: Although I only took one bite from most cupcakes, by the time I had made my way through the 26 "original" entries I was much too full to attempt the "traditional" entries. But I would like to congratulate Big Man Bake's "Red Velvet" for winning first prize in that category.

The prevailing theme of the year seemed to be bacon (and you know how I love my bacon)! Three separate shops put out a bacon offering with varying levels of success. Far and away the best of these attempts was the "Breakfast Cake" from My Delight Cup Cakery. This consisted of a pancake flavored cake with maple frosting sprinkled with fresh bits of bacon and drizzled with maple syrup. Although I did not "shoot" the entire cupcake in one mouthful like some of my brave table mates, one bite was enough to convince me that these people are culinary geniuses. Willy Wonka may have unsuccessfully attempted to stuff an entire dinner into a piece of gum, but the ladies behind My Delight have truly captured the essence of an indulgent breakfast in a single cupcake (and no one turned into a blueberry at the end!). The cupcake was sweet and salty and moist and creamy and utterly unique. While I didn't vote for it, it was one of my absolute favorites and I am delighted to announce that it won Best Original Cupcake.

My vote for Best Original went to the Caramel Banana cupcake from Jus Minis. Nineteen year old Executive Culinary Director Justin Polacek was actually brulee-ing individual banana slices at the event, giving his table the added excitement of a fiery demonstration. Far from being just for show, those little coins were the perfect compliment to his luxurious cupcakes. The bruleed banana had the satisfying crunch of caramel coupled with the creamy softness of the raw banana. Add to this a cupcake that tasted like a deep and richly flavored banana bread, as well as some silky chocolate frosting (who doesn't love that combo??) and you have one phenomenal cupcake. So phenomenal, in fast, that it won first place in the "Best Overall" category. Congratulations Justin! Here's hoping that this win gives him a chance to start selling his cupcakes in stores in the LA area, not just in Riverside!

My vote for Best Overall went to the Key Lime cupcake from My Delight Cup Cakery (they of the fabled breakfast cake - both pictured above.) Another big trend I noticed this year was putting a surprise filling inside the cupcake. The treats were filled with everything from pumpkin puree to strawberry jam to caramel that oozed forth as if from a truffle. I am all for this trend as it adds yet another dimension of flavor and excitement to the cupcake. My Delight's Key Lime cupcake gave us a spectacular example of how a filling could elevate the taste. They nestled a tart and pungent dollop of creamy key lime filling inside their sweet little cake. They then topped it with a super soft meringue that had just a hint of a crunch from being baked on the outside. With the multitude of flavors and textures, (and my Florida native's love of key lime), this was one of the highlights of the show for me. Here's hoping that My Delight expands out of the Ontario area and comes to LA sometime soon!

Having failed to bring Tupperware, My Delight Cup Cakery was kind enough to give me one of their handy plastic trays, which I loaded down with all the treats that would not yet fit in my stomach. (This feat of ingenuity, coupled with my foresight of wearing expandable pants, earned me the title of Chief of the CIA, an honor for which I will forever be grateful!). It is four days later, and I am still enjoying the fruits of my labor (although I think they will all be gone after today!).

Overall, it had been a day with many highs (see above) and a few lows ("this lavender cupcake tastes like lotion"). I would like to thank Drink:Eat:Play for putting on such a magical event; it surpassed all my expectations. It was even so well organized that by the end there were still plenty of cupcakes to spare! Thank goodness this is an annual event, as I can't wait to experience another day in my own personal heaven.

Check out all of Drink:Eat:Play's wonderful events at:
http://www.drinkeatplay.com/

Check out Jus Minis at:
http://www.jus-minis.com

Check out My Delight Cup Cakery at:
http://mydelightcupcakery.com

LA Barbeque Festival - Finger Lickin' Good

As my friend C and I stepped out of the car parked three blocks away, the heady scent of wood, smoke, and meat filled our nostrils. BBQ powerful enough to traverse three city blocks? This was going to be a good day. Anticipation only mounted as we crossed the bridge over the PCH and saw the rows of white tents waiting for us, each containing their own secret ingredents, believed to hold the key to the very best barbecue.

Stepping inside, we were surrounded by barbecue enthusiasts of every age, race, color and creed. There were the hipsters, the aging hippies, the frat boys, the beach bums, the families, all of them gathered in joyous celebration of grilled meat. Perhaps the UN should start holding more 'ques.

We decided to scope out all the options before commiting to any plates. After all $10 got you quite a hunk of meat in addition to a side, so we knew going in that we would probably only be able to sample about three different kinds. **Note to organizers: it would be amazing if next year each booth had small plates (a rib or two) for just a few bucks so that attendees could sample more varieties.** We immediately eliminated all LA based vendors, vowing instead to actually go and try out those restaurants at some later date. So then it was all about deciding which regions looked the most scrumptious.
C has eaten her way across the country multiple times, and she said those Missourians knew their 'que. So we opted to get the Kansas City Spare Ribs and Baked Beans from L.C.'s BBQ. They use a wet rub, which leads to the meat being incredibly moist with a flavor that invades your mouth with the force of a hurricane. The ribs had a nice warmth without being overly spicy, as well as a crunchy crust. If only they'd had just a pinch less salt they would have been perfect. But the baked beans, rife with pork fat, were phenomenal! Sweet and spicy, they literally melted in my mouth.

Having procured our wet ribs, we also wanted to try a dry rub, so we purchased Memphis Championship BBQ's Ribs and Coleslaw. (A disclaimer, I don't like coleslaw, so I won't be reviewing it). I'll be honest, the main reason I insisted on these ribs was that this recipe was named the Champion at the 1902 World's Fair. Are you kidding me? I had to try any recipe older then anyone I know. The ribs were tasty and the spices well balanced, but the flavor was not nearly as powerful as I would have liked.

For our third dish, we went with the Pulled Pork Sandwich from Butch's Smack Your Lips BBQ in New Jersey. This was my favorite of all three! The pork was as tender as a dream, and the extra sauce that I slathered on was delicious, complex, sharp, sweet, tangy and so much more. The sauce and pork juices were all soaked up by the bottom bun, transforming an overwhelmingly ordinary piece of bread into a pillowy burst of flavor. (Note to BBQers - your meat is fantastic, but it might be time to investigate some better bread!). My one quibble was that the meat was not as hot as I would have liked, but I partly attribute that to the massive amount of sauce I used to smother the meat. Also, in the interest of full disclosure, this was C's least favorite dish. A Boston girl at heart, she's enjoyed the best "BBQ sandwich" out of a shack somewhere in the middle of Mississippi, and, for her, there's just no going back (certainly not to Jersey!). But for my money, these Jersey Boys can do the 'que.

Thoroughly stuffed, we nonetheless made room for $3 Polkatots Cupcakes! These cupcakes are smaller then most, but still pack plenty of flavor. Their Vanilla cupcake is good, with a sweet, smooth frosting and moist vanilla cake contrasting with the crunchy "blue sparkles" on top. But it's their Dulce de Leche cupcake that is a revelation!! They have somehow figured out a way to pack enormous Dulce flavor into the creamy softness of frosting. Add to that the extra punch of actual Dulce de Leche squiggled on top and you have one of the most phenomenal cupcakes I've ever tasted (and trust me, I have tasted my fair share...someday I may write an entire essay on cupcakes in LA). If you ever find yourself anywhere NEAR Pasadena, go get these cupcakes!

Author's note: Lost in my Dulce de Leche rapture, I suddenly looked up to discover that C had dissapeared. Apparently, despite her full stomach, the lure of a Texas Sausage proved irresistable and she went back for fourths. And, man, she was glad she did (as was I, as it left more of the cupcakes for me!)

Overall, we had a wonderful day at the festival. Good people, delicious aromas, and a stomach full of pork and cupcakes. What more could a girl want?

More information on the Barbeque Festival can be found here: www.labbqfest.com

More information on Polkatots Cupcakes can be found here: www.polkatotscupcakes.com

Two Exciting Announcements!

Hello dear readers. This isn't an actual review - just two exciting bits of news that I wanted to share with you!

The first is that there is a BBQ festival in Santa Monica this weekend. Admission is $10 for a regular pass or $50 for a VIP pass. After that, $10 can get you a plate of award winning bbq from such far flung places as Texas or Missouri (plus, of course, the best that LA has to offer). Oh, and they have dessert too!! I will definitely be in attendence, so look for a review some time next week. You can check out all the details here:

www.labbqfest.com

The second announcement is that I have started cooking school! I figured if I'm going to be writing about cooking every week, I should understand what goes into the whole process. Hurrah, I am so excited! We meet once a week for twenty four weeks, so probably not enough time to become a top chef, but I'm hoping to get a good handle on the basics and be able to throw amazing dinner parties by the time I'm through! Wish me luck!

The Grilled Cheese Invitational

Los Angeles is a city full of diet conscious people. We have our vegans, our raw foodies, our macro-biotics (I'm not judging, as I have enjoyed the cuisine of all three.) But couple that with the fact that so many of our residents are as tanned and toned as the cast of 90210, and you may start to think there's little full fat, purely indulgent gastro-fun in the City of Angles. Enter: The Grilled Cheese Invitational.

By the time the gates opened at noon the line stretched all the way around the park and back! This is probably because the first 1700 people got to JUDGE the contest. As we waited in line, my friend N and I signed waivers giving them the right to kill us, steal from us, and basically do anything they wished without us holding them accountable. Then the nice folks at Kraft handed out little triangles of Kraft Singles Grilled Cheese. Now you know I'm not one to turn down free food, but I could only hope the quality level would skyrocket after that.

As we judges began milling around the fenced in park, the excitement level was so high I overheard one girl exclaim, "This is going to be the best day of my life!" And indeed it would seem so. Many competitors upped their cheesiness factor with kooky costumes such as robes and berets, balloon hats, cheese heads, etc. Most spirit points has to go to the Challah team, who sported sweat bands and kept inciting the crowd to "Challah!!!"

Then came the organizers, clearly kings of cheesiness. There was a Mayor of Cheese to welcome us all, an Irreverent Reverend to give the benediction, and the organizer of the whole shebang, Mr. Tim Walker, sporting a bright red fez. He spoke of "A sea of cheese that longs to melt, butter that yearns to fry, and bread that cries out to be grilled!" The Reverend actually went so far as to suggest that the answer to all of our nations woes might be found in a Grilled Cheese Sammich, reminding us that we were presently surrounded by 1.75 batrillion slices of hope. We can only hope dear Reverend, we can only hope.

The day had four heats: Missionary (just bread, cheese, and butter, nothing else), Kama Sutra - Vegetarian (Anything goes as long as it also includes the above three and no meat), Kama Sutra - Meat (self explanatory), and Honey Pot (Desserts!). Now here is the sad part: Each judge gets only TWO samples. Yes, of the hundreds of options, you could only try two. N and I of course decided to split our samples, but still four bites of different grilled cheeses does not exactly a feast make. Each sample came with a ballot on which you could rate the grilled cheese. Now, I understand that you can not ask competitors to make 1700 samples, but this still strikes me as a highly arbitrary way to judge. Especially considering the fact that in order to get a sample, you had to enter a crush of people, wave your ticket madly, and hope that the "runner" would take your ticket and give you a sample. You didn't even have any way of knowing exactly what was in each sammich. N and I just tried to spot a few ingredients we liked and then go for that.

This strategy produced mixed results throughout the day. Next year, I wouldn't waste any tickets on the "Missionary" heat as it was just too simple. The sample we procured there was a huge disappointment, just a step or two up from the Kraft samples. But the samples vastly improved with the Kama Sutra round. The best one we tried there had goat cheese, thinly sliced apple, some sort of spread, and a beet cut out in a star on top. Very tasty.

But the most delicious aspect of the day had to be the demonstration I attended by Chef Eric Greenspan of The Foundry. As last year's winner, he was serving up a decadent creation made of creamy and sharp Tallegio, oven dried tomatoes, arugula, braised beef, and an apricot caper puree with white wine, all of which was served up on a nutty bread that had been grilled in about a pound of butter. AMAZING! This sammich is apparently a fixture on his bar menu at The Foundry, so you may just see a review of that coming soon!

N. and I left the competition having been entertained and heartened by this show of a community in support of cheese, and we are now determined to enter next year! So be on the lookout, we're thinking we'll wear cheesy ballgowns as our costumes!:)

The Grilled Cheese Invitational takes place once a year and costs $5 (Certainly a deal considering they had free Kraft Singles Grilled Cheese and Izze Soda in addition to the competitor's samples).

For more information, you can go to: http://grilledcheeseinvitational.com