I♥cuppycakes!

Please forgive me fellow cupcake-ers.

I know I’m a bit ♪tardy for the party♪♫ with this post. <– Omg *smacks forehead* too much Real Housewives of Atlanta reruns! Talk about train wreck with big hair. I just can’t look away…

Wow. So where do I begin? This month’s Cupcake Hero was interesting nonetheless. I’ve been debating for the last 4 days about how to announce the winner. I hit a little snag. Let’s just say it’s a little more than tricky. But I’ll get to that in a minute.

Since I hadn’t announced a winner yet can you imagine my surprise when Occasional Sugar and Cupcakes Take The Cake (posts have since been edited) announced the winner for me? It seems I wasn’t the only one anxious for a winner, eh? Thankfully Jamieanne was a gracious “winner” and immediately contacted both parties to set them straight about the throw down with Samantha. And Occasional Sugar sent me an apologetic email and distraught tweet explaining what happened. No harm done! Am I upset? Of course not. Why would I be? This is the way I look at it. I know that Occasional Sugar and Cupcakes Take The Cake’s misquote wasn’t malicious and any press is good press. (Lindsey Lohan might not agree with me right now though.) In my blogging world, as long as you don’t steal my content without credit, anything is amendable. That’s my blog-osophy. But thanks to all concerned parties for the emails. It’s actually quite cute. You all are such drama queens. HA!

So about that Cupcake Hero snag.

What are the odds of a tie?

Because that’s what happened.

This is what I figured out. Both pumpkin “cake” recipes were the same Martha Stewart recipe so the cake scores balanced out for every taste tester. The only difference was the filling/frosting and apparently half my peeps liked the vanilla cream filling (which was AH-MAZING by the way!) and the other half liked the dulce de leche (which was FAN-FRIGGIN-TASTIC in my opinion!)

Now the question is. Who is the winner?

My husband suggested a red velvet cupcake off. But I think he has ulterior motives. *wink*

I will take all suggestions into consideration via email or comments.

Deadline November 6th @ 11:59pm EST.

Bring it.

Can you all believe it’s almost November?

November is one of my favorite months. You’ve got Fall, Thanksgiving, turkey, pumpkin pie, family, friends, paid non-work days and no gift buying responsibilities. What more could you ask for in a month right? There are so many fun food ideas in November that it was hard to choose just 1 ingredient for Cupcake Hero. So how did I choose?

I wussed out and let my husband choose. HA!

But I knew it was a mistake as soon as I saw him going over the November food holidays list. It didn’t take him long before he said excitedly, “I didn’t know that November was National Peanut Butter Lover’s month?” I proceeded to smack my head. “What about cranberries or something more Thanksgiving related, hun?” But after my husband saw peanut butter on the list, there was no going back.

“To me, peanut butter is the breakfast of champions!” ~Greg Louganis

The thing about peanut butter. I like it. But I wouldn’t say I’m a “lover”. My husband? He’s a lover. But I’ll make it a little easier on all the peanut butter like-ers out there. You aren’t limited to just peanut butter. You can use sunflower butter, cashew butter, almond butter. Any nut butter. As long as I can find it in the store, you can use it. (EDIT TO ADD: Nutella is excluded.)

And now I’ll leave you with a little song to get you in the peanut butter groove.

Deadline: November 15th @ 11:59pm EST

Cupcake Hero FAQ ~> HERE. If you still can’t find answer to your question, email me.

PS- You’ve got until 11:59pm EST tonight to get those last minute votes in. I don’t care what you have to do! Beg, bribe and/or barter for votes if you have to. T-minus 16 hours and counting…

Don’t shake your head at me.

I know what you’re thinking.

“It took you a week to count up the votes, CB, really?”

My answer? Yes, yes it did. I never said I was a math whiz and I do have a life outside cupcakes. *gasp* I know. Actually if you want the real scoop; There’s a lot of pretty exciting stuff happening at mi casa that took center stage above Cupcake Hero for a week. More deets here.

When I say this was a close call, trust me. This was a close call. By one vote. One stinking vote. Can you believe it? Obviously my taste testers loved both cupcakes but unfortunately “…only one can be the winner.” (It’s killing me that I can’t remember what show that’s from!!)

And the winner is… ~>

Yes, I made scorecards.

Yes, I forced my friends taste testers to fill them out.

No, I don’t have too much time on my hands. Thanks for asking.

Winner to be announced soon.

PS- Please see this post for updated Cupcake Hero::October ingredient/theme. (Who knew there was a pumpkin shortage?? Not me!)

Wow. Just wow.

I am in shock at how many votes you all got in our first Cupcake Hero challenge. Almost 1400! That’s what I’m talking about!

Now be honest. Raise your hand if you sat in front of your computer and voted for yourself 100x? Don’t look innocent. There’s no shame in voting for yourself over and over again. Heck if the rules say I can “vote as many times as you want” you better believe I’ll be hitting “vote” every 5 secs. I might throw in a mercy vote for a few of my cup-testants here and there but it’s really all about me, Baby! Call it egotistical (I call it competitive spirit) but if you don’t think you’re the best how can you convince others right? However after getting some concerned emails from fellow Cupcake Hero-ers, I decided in the name of fairness, I’ll be changing the rules to 1 vote/person from now on.

Any complaints call Jenny at 867-5309.

Ok. Enough administrative business. Let’s talk cupcakes. If you check out the side menu bar, there was a tight 4 way race for voter’s choice but eventually Christy’s Peanut Butter Banana Sandwich Cupcake came out the favorite with 319 votes! Whoa mama! Congratulations Christy! Are you ready to see who you’ll be facing?

Baker’s choice (hey that’s me!) was a hard one. There were so many cupcakes that I wanted to bake and probably will later. I hope you all realize how momentous this occasion is. Me? Of all people. Wants to bake banana cupcakes. Key word. WANT.

But eventually I kept coming back to one cupcake. It had me at burnt frosting.

Pssst… Want another hint for October’s Cupcake Hero ingredient? Brought to you by haiku.

Hey Cupcake Heroes
Halloween is coming soon
Bake and be scary.

Let the throwdown begin!

Stay tuned.