Cupcake Eating Contest

Last Friday I made my way down to Dozen Bake Shop to observe their Cupcake Eating Contest, one of the last events in Cupcake Week 2008.  Several people assumed I was there to participate, but as many of my friends know, it takes me an excruciatingly long time to eat a cupcake, often to the amusement (and sometimes annoyance) of my dining companions. 

The event was a fundraiser for the Greater Pittsburgh Community Food Bank and had two parts.  The first part was an hour long "meet and greet" during which the spectators could meet the contestants and show their support for a particular contestant by placing money in a donation jar in front of the contestant.  I supported "Powered By Pancakes" because her costume totally kicked ass.  At the end of the hour the contents of the jars were tabulated and the contestant that had raised the most money won a dozen cupcakes each month for a year.  Unfortunately, Powered By Pancakes didn't win, but I'm sure the woman who did will enjoy her awesome prize.
(The Vegan Unibomber sure was intimidating!)

The second part of the event was the actual cupcake eating contest.  Shortly before it started James (one of the owners of Dozen) asked me if I would like to be an official counter.  Awesome!  I of course said yes and he paired me up with a rather large contestant who I later found out was Broken Wing, a professional competitive eater.  Broken Wing is the current Pittsburgh Wing Bowl Champ and the Ohio Burger Champ.  He was seated next to his friend, another professional competitive eater named Obi Wing Kenobi, who was a three-time Pittsburgh Wing Bowl finalist and is ranked 28th in the International Federation of Competitive Eating.
After all of the contestants and their counters got settled at a long table, Andrew (the other owner of Dozen) started placing trays of cupcakes in front of each contestant while Bob, a representative of the IFCE, went over the rules.  Each contestant had three minutes to consume as many cupcakes as possible.  At the end of the three minutes, the last cupcake had to be entirely in the contestant's mouth (but not swallowed) to count in their final tally.  Each contestant was offered a large glass of water or milk.  (Only one person took the milk, and I have no idea what he was thinking.)
I asked Broken Wing if he was going to dunk his cupcakes in the glass of water, Nathan's-Hot-Dog-style, and he said no, that the cupcakes were too delicate and would just fall apart.  After Bob finished explaining the rules he led the crowd in a 10 second countdown, and the three minutes of madness began.  After time was up James went down the table and had each counter call out the number of cupcakes their contestant had eaten.  Broken Wing had eaten fourteen, double the number of the next highest contestant.  Yay!
James awarded an awesome trophy to Broken Wing, who also won a dozen cupcakes a month for a year as well as gift certificates to various local shops and restaurants.  Guests began to file out after the awards ceremony, helping themselves to leftover cupcakes as they left.
I hope Dozen makes this an annual event -- perhaps someday we can lure Kobayashi and Chestnut to Pittsburgh to participate!