Cupcake Wars Birthday Party

My oldest LOVES to bake!  And she's really, really good at it.  So, for her birthday this year she wanted to do a "Cupcake Wars" party.   I made these retro aprons in two different fabric patterns, and as each girl arrived they were instructed to pick one, and that divided the group into teams.

Since her party was on St. Patrick's Day, we chose that as the theme for the first round, with emphasis on taste.  Each team was given a basic recipe for a white cake, a chocolate cake, buttercream and chocolate buttercream frostings and ganache.  Because they always make ganache on Cupcake Wars and it sounds sooo fancy!  ;-)

Then we had a bunch of extra ingredients set out..... including mint, mint leaves, almonds, almond extract, orange flavoring, toffee bits, vanilla wafers, chocolate chips, white chocolate and mint chips, caramel, chile pepper and cinnamon.  The teams were required to incorporate at least three extra ingredients in their recipes, and they took turns picking them to avoid duplicates and make it more interesting.  After that, they could grab whatever was left!  I set up two baking stations and had a central set of the basic ingredients and supplies they would all need.

Turned out this was the first time almost all of these girls had baked something from scratch, and they loved it!!!  It was so much fun to watch them measuring their ingredients and collaborating to come up with creative ideas.  They were great!!!

First round lasted one hour, before the teams presented and were judged on taste.  Winning team members each received a spatula, along with the honor of creating the yummiest recipe, of course!

For the second round, the girls used the cupcakes they had previously  baked and focused solely on presentation.  Spring was the theme for this decorating challenge, and I pulled out some edible flowers, candies and stuff to make gum paste flowers for them to create with.  Sooo impressed with the designs they came up with in just 30 minutes, and the winning team received hot pads and some serious props!  My daughter picked a favorite cupcake, we lit it up to sing her the song and the girls sampled all of their creations with some vanilla bean ice cream.

Definitely a party I would do again!!!