Branching out

In more competition news, I'm considering trying something completely outside the box for me. Tasting competitions! The Colorado State Fair has a few "Special" contests, including a Cupcake Challenge sponsored by C & H Sugar, a Chocolate Championship sponsored by Ghiradelli and a Great Cakes Contest sponsored by King Arthur Flour. It's definitely related to cake decorating...what's underneath the decor has to taste as good as it looks, right?

All recipes have to be original and unpublished and completely from scratch. Now, I bake from scratch all the time, and I've developed my own recipes for simple things like fillings and frostings, but never cake or cupcakes! I've been busy doing research and applying it to what I already know and yesterday made my first and second draft of my very own cupcake recipe! It does still need tweaking but I'm very pleased with both the cupcake and the icing. I had NO IDEA how fun this would be!

I have a couple of concepts in mind for the chocolate and the cake contests but I plan to perfect that cupcake before moving on to the next thing. Of course, all recipes and ideas are secret until I submit them!

Just for fun, though, here's a sneak peek at version # 2...

Thanks for reading! I'll keep you posted!