Tour De Cupcake

The Bike Kitchen, a do-it-yourself bike repair shop in San Francisco, is hosting the Tour De Cupcake bike race to raise money for their move to a new space.  The TDC is on Sunday, October 19th, and involves racing a course interspersed with various "cupcake checkpoints".  Bonus points are given if the biker consumes a cupcake at a checkpoint.

Those of you in San Francisco should totally check this out.  It sounds awesome!  If any of you make it to the race, send along pictures and let me know which cupcakeries/bakeries were used as checkpoints.

New Video by Dozen

Check out this new video by Dozen:



Every December the graduate program I attended holds a big show where they screen the best student work.  I went to the show last week and at the reception afterwards I noticed a small display of minis from Dozen.  Most of the Wednesday flavors were present, except the Raspberry Zinger, which was the one I was most looking forward to eating.  Sad!

The Holidays at CoCo's

The Thursday before Thanksgiving I went to "Glow Night" on Ellsworth Avenue, home of CoCo's Cupcake Cafe.  Ellsworth Avenue is located in Shadyside, one of the little neighborhoods of Pittsburgh.  "Glow Night" is an annual affair during which the holiday lights on Ellsworth are lit for the first time, musicians stroll around the street playing music, and carolers move from store to store as patrons wander and shop.  CoCo's was offering complimentary minis, cookies, and wine to celebrate the festivities.


I helped myself to a Pumpkin Spice mini and a glow cookie, both of which were fantastic.  Shea (one of the owners of CoCo's) showed off the new Ellsworth and CoCo's t-shirts which they will have on sale in their store shortly:


I also admired their new holiday flavors including the aforementioned Pumpkin Spice, as well as the Caramel Apple, Candied Apple, Gingerbread, and Vegan Sweet Potato.  Sweet potatoes with brown sugar and marshmallows is my absolute favorite Thanksgiving dish, so I snagged one of the Vegan Sweet Potato cupcakes on my way out the door.  I ate it later that night for dessert and it was amazingly delicious.  It was so good, in fact, that I dragged Baron back to CoCo's the following Saturday night for "Shop for the Cause", another event on Ellsworth Avenue during which 10% of all sales went to the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh.  We got two more Vegan Sweet Potato cupcakes and Baron agreed with me that they were really freaking good.  It's a shame that Thanksgiving isn't a year-round holiday...I love the foods and smells this time of year.

Cupcake-themed Fashion Show for Cystic Fibrosis

Last night I went to a cupcake-themed fashion show to raise money for Cystic Fibrosis at Pittsburgh's Firehouse Lounge. Attractive men and women modeled clothing from several Pittsburgh boutiques on the bar-turned-catwalk while guests sipped drinks made from Absolut, one of the sponsors of the fashion show. The catwalk was decorated with cute construction-paper cupcakes and the first model of each boutique carried a large cupcake-shaped sign with the boutique's name on it.

Admission was $10, but for $200 you could buy a six-person table which included t-shirts from the various boutiques, a bottle of your choice of Absolut vodka, and float of six cupcakes, each made with a different flavor of Absolut. The cupcakes were made by CoCo's Cupcake Cafe in Pittsburgh. Initially I planned to head over to the Firehouse just to watch the show (as much as I wanted to support the Cystic Fibrosis charity, $200 is a fair bit out of my price range), but at the last minute some friends of mine who own a company decided to buy a table. Thanks Electric Owl Studios!

The gentleman who checked us in told us that our table would be marked with a cupcake with our name on it, and sure enough a giant paper cupcake on top of an elegant wine case awaited us at our table. Shortly after we sat down our hostess brought us our bottle of Absolut on ice, along with pitchers of Sprite and cranberry juice. The highlight of the evening, however, was definitely the cupcakes. Everyone agreed that they were absolutely divine! Shea Mullen (owner of CoCo's) sat and chatted with me for awhile, and people kept coming up to our table to tell her how delicious the cupcakes were. Great job, CoCo's!

The cupcakes were (almost) too beautiful to eat, and it took our party about half an hour to conquer our guilt and devour them. Clockwise from top left the flavors were: Citron, Mandarin Orange, Raspberri, Peach, Vanilla, and Ruby Red. At 10pm, after the runway show ended, the event organizers broke out boxes of mini-cupcakes made with Absolut Pear and unveiled the piece of art commemorating the launch of Absolut Pear that Absolut commissioned from Shea. Shea's silk screen print was cute, modern, and clever, and I was pretty bummed that my camera broke shortly after I took the pictures above. I've got a new camera on the way, and as soon as it arrives I'll take some more pictures of the cupcake-schwag that was on our table and update the gallery.

Cupcakes for a Cause

I love it when cupcakes are used to help make the world a better place! My friend told me about a cupcake sale in Olympia, Washington to help raise money for a Domestic Violence charity. I also found this piece of cupcake artmade by an artist from Creativity Explored, a nonprofit visual artscenter for artists with developmental disabilities. The profits fromthe art sales go to both the artist as well as Creativity Explored.Neat!