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Sunday, November 21, 2010

Once upon a time at Cupcake Camp LA...

Well, Cupcake Camp has come and gone and oh my stars what a whirlwind! The event was a lot of fun at the venue The Music Box in Hollywood.  I've been here multiple times to see concerts. So it was a little bizarre to be there with the lights on and tables of people frosting cupcakes on the stage. 

All in all, it was totally worth staying up all night. I had a great time and can never thank Eva enough for helping me. I couldn't have done it without her. Also, Marianne who gave me her Great Grandmother's recipe to try out. I am honored that you feel, I am doing justice to your family's recipe. These are my favorite tasting cupcakes I have ever made. Ever.

And now, the story of how Ammie's Sweet Treats went to Cupcake Camp LA!


Cupcake Camp Poster

Friday - I got home around 6.30pm friday night and started in on the first batch of honey cakes. Eva arrived a little while later and she started in on the marzipan bees. Eva kicked marzipan and fondant butt!  We had bees for the honey cakes and then marzipan walk of fame stars and fondant movie clappers for the devils food chocolate cupcakes.


Eva's Army of Bees

I think staying up all night and baking and talking was the best part. It was like having a cupcake slumber party:) Although at some point, time started to really move and I ended up staying up pretty much all night. I kind of took a cat nap at about 6am for 30 minutes. Eva was a trooper and stayed up with me till almost 5.


Then the morning light was coming through the window and I was starting my 2nd batch of penuche frosting for the chocolate cupcakes. Then onto my 3rd... this frosting which last week was so easy was not turning out. I had 3 batches of crap. Luckily I had made the vanilla buttercream for the 2nd half of honey cakes. So that was ready once Eva was up and ready to start back in it.  

With the third batch not working out, I decided it was time to just do chocolate. So I started 2 different chocolate recipes.  The whole time Eva was great, just reassuring that it would all be okay. Awesome. But seriously, why is frosting so hard? It really is my nemesis.


My kitchen after a 100 cupcakes baked and frosted!


Some how we did it, and as Eva was was finishing the last of the chocolate I as printing cards to hand out and taking the boxed cupcakes out to the mini.


Cupcakes are boxed and ready


Driving to the event I realized that I forgot my fondant Hollywood sign for the top of the display. As usual, Eva to the rescue. She says, "oh I can make one with paper." She is so crafty - everyone loved her hollywood sign. Which was about 1000x better than what I had made.  I love that Eva's craftiness was shown in the display. She was an awesome assistant!

This was the display for the Cupcake Camp, all bakers 
could bring a cupcake up to the stand.

We get to The Music Box and start bringing stuff in and Eva gets to work on the Hollywood Sign Cutout. After while, we are up and ready to go. After walking around I realize that I didn't have my dish for the beads for the contest. Thank you iphone - with a quick search I find a Pier One just down the street. Best on sale vase I ever bought:)


Welcome to Hollywood Cupcakes
Sunny "LA" Honey Cupcakes and Great Granny's Chocolate Devils
by Ammie's Sweet Treats


Back to the event with plenty of time.  The event was awesome. They had a photo booth complete with accessories - crowns, feather boas etc. So we got our pictures taken. And I put up one of the photos on our display in the front of the table.

Eva and I with our awesome display.

Finally, they opened the doors for Session 1. It was like a mad house. I think the best part of the day was watching all the little kids wondering through. They were adorable, wide eyed and totally overwhelmed. I was myself when it was my chance to walk around and pick.


After a little bit we saw some friendly faces coming through the line. It was great as everyone kind of showed up around the same time, so it created a little bit of buzz at our station. 


Towards the end of Session 1 they announced the sponsors and the charities for which the donated money were going towards: Angel Acres Horse Rescue, American Tortoise Rescue, and InvisiblePeople.tv. Then they had the bakers count their beads and they gave out the trophy.  We had 12 beads and I think it was 27 tickets.


During the break, Eva and I took turns going around with our tasting tickets.


Eva during the break

Then Session 2 started. It was definitely a different vibe than the frantic rush during the first session. And once again we saw some friendly faces. At the end of Session 2 we had 9 beads and 41 tickets. 


During both sessions we had some friendly faces come through the line. I'd like to thank: Reuben, Jenny, little baby Logan, Marianne and baby to be, Michael, Charlotte, Rowan, Dan, Joe, Josh, Heather and Troy. It means the world to me that all of you came out to support me and that you used your tickets for my cupcakes. I hope you enjoyed them! And Heather had my favorite quote from the whole day - "Holy cupcakes, Batman!"


Our view during cupcake camp la


I also want to thank the little girl who came up with her parents - she was enchanted with the honey cupcake with the bee. You are the reason why I love to bake. She wanted that bee cupcake and handed me her ticket with a smile on her face.  Later in the day, we noticed that they were sitting behind our station with all their cupcakes. Eva asked if she could take a picture of them with our cupcake.  A little later the little girl came over and handed me her bead and told me that I had her favorite cupcake. It made my day. Then Eva and I passed one of the Great Granny's Chocolate Devils to them to try out. They loved that one too.


We had people stopping all day long to take photos of the display. Everyone seemed to love it. It was awesome watching people stop to take photos of my cupcakes. The honey bee cupcakes were definitely the hit. People loved bees!  Plus, a few people came by that were bloggers and took photos and a video. They even had a thing on channel 7 news - and I'm almost in the video. In the video they are filming the line of tables I was in and it stops right as they are getting to my display but I saw my table cloth! :)


The cards I printed out - this is the back side.

It has a Quirk from a friends Quirk application. You can scan the image and it takes you to my greengirlbakes twitter account.

And that's it, the day ended we gave the few leftovers we had to the person who was there for the homeless charity to take back and we were outta there.  We came back and did a little tasting of the cupcakes we had selected with our tickets. And then let the sugar coma set in:)

2 comments:

  1. Thanks! You were great. I interviewed you for my book: Cupcakes, Lies, and Dead Guys. You're going up on the Facebook page soon, sweetie!

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  2. If you're interested in more photos from the event - I posted some on my blog ;)

    http://www.loveonprintblog.com/

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