Iron Cupcake: Fright Night

My favourite Sunday of the month rolled around yesterday. Spending an evening eating loads of different types of cakes and not feeling guilty about it as you're doing a very important job judging them all- YES PLEASE. I even mentioned this back when I was interviewed for my job at the hospital, it seems its an acceptable way to basically say "yes, my hobbies include eating ridiculous amounts of cake and just generally being a massive fatty" (work should have sensed back then that hiring me would do serious damage to their biscuit tin...). 

In true October style, this month's Iron Cupcake theme was Fright Night and I was so impressed with all the entries. There were surprisingly few pumpkin flavoured cakes and there were so many creative ideas; something about Halloween seemed to make the bakers really pull out all the stops with the decoration! 

If you're ever in Leeds and like me can happily eat cake until its coming out of your ears, then I'd definitely recommend registering for tickets next time. The bakers are a lovely bunch as are all the judges- its not a scary Great British Bake Off type experience at all. I sadly lack the ability to strike fear in the hearts of bakers in the same way that Paul Hollywood does (despite being from the same little peninsula as him). 

This is just a little snippet of the night, there were 18 cakes in total (luckily you only get to try a quarter of each type of cake... that many full cakes would definitely be enough to finish even the most experienced eaters off!) and I sadly didn't get a picture of the winner... but I'll give a special mention to my lovely baker friend Charlie and her chocolate warewolves since they came third and all (she didn't even pay me to say that, honest!). 

I'm going to carry on the theme of cakey goodness and sort myself out for tomorrow night now... my friends and I are having a GBBO final themed meal and we're each baking a different 'course' from the series. I'm doing sticky toffee puddings. Yum.