Iron Cupcake

I know, I know, Valentines day has long been and passed now, but I've been separated from my memory card and my laptop so haven't had a chance to post these pictures from the latest Iron Cupcake competition until now. If you've not seen me post about the competition before then I'll fill you in a little first. My lovely friend Charlie runs Iron Cupcake monthly in Leeds and every month there's a different theme to challenge bakers skills. You can then go along to the competition as either a baker or an eater (or both if you really want to get involved!) and spend your Sunday evening surrounded by cake. There's always some great prizes for the bakers, and eaters get to eat tonnes of cake (can you tell why I like going so much?!).

This month's theme was a seasonal one, "Valentines: Love it or Hate it". I was slightly disappointed that there weren't more entries on the hate it side of things as I'm really not a fan of Valentine's day, I just don't like the whole forced sentiment around it and the abundance of unoriginal pictures of roses that took over Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for the weekend, but the standard was impressive and there were some pretty beautiful (and very, very tasty) cakes to try! 

The cakes above won two prizes on the night, the Baker's Panel (chosen by bakers who also took part in the judging) and the Best in Show. They were lovely passionfruit and raspberry flavoured cakes and everybody seemed to love the marshmallows!

I found it really difficult to pick a favourite as they were all so yummy, but these cute little Bee My Valentine cupcakes pipped the others to the post in my eyes as I'm an absolute sucker for anything lemon flavoured, give me homemade lemon curd and I'm yours forever.

 Next month's competition falls on my birthday (9th March) and the theme is Vegan cakes... Charlie didn't take me up on my suggestion to make the theme Kaz's Birthday sadly. I'm intrigued to see what the bakers come up with as I'm sure it'll be out of a lot of people's comfort zones! There's one baker who comes every month to the competition who always makes really tasty vegan cakes so I've got high expectations of the other bakers! 

Iron Cupcake: Be My Valentine

Some of you might remember my last post about the monthly Iron Cupcake competition that takes place in Leeds. For those of you that don't know, its a monthly competition for bakers who are given the challenge of creating a set of cupcakes based around a given theme. Then fatties cake enthusiasts like me get to sample the selection and give marks to each cake based on their taste and appearance (not an easy task when there's such a talented bunch of bakers but someone's got to do it!). 

This month's theme was "Be My Valentine", and I was expecting table after table filled with pink, flowers and hearts and not a lot else. And, ok there were a lot of hearts. But they were all so beautifully presented that I didn't mind. Plus there were some slightly less traditional ideas floating around too, particularly the 'last rolo' cupcakes which I thought were a fab little idea (as far as I'm concerned, sharing your last rolo is what romance is all about!). There was another great take on this cheesy holiday from Charlie who made a savoury cupcake that was made of cheese upon cheese with a puff pastry cheese heart on top (the Valentine's cynic in me gave her the inspiration for that little number when moaning about the holiday!). 

This is just a little snippet of the cupcakes the bakers brought along, the full line up will be on the Iron Cupcake website if you fancy a gander. 

If you're in Leeds on the 10th March and enjoy cake as much as I do, then come along and judge- its a great excuse to allow yourself to eat a tonne of cake and not feel in the slightest bit guilty about it... after all you need to sample them all to be able to crown a winner, its only fair!