What a week!

It has been quite a busy week.  The kids have been on winter break and we decided to not to plan anything big.  We just wanted go with the flow.  It has been relaxing and fun.

On Sunday we joined our friends, the Parmas, for a THROWDOWN challenge.  You see, the Parmas (and us too) are fans of Bobby Flay's "Throwndown" show on the Food Network.  Caitlin, their 4 year old daughter, came up with the idea that we should have a baking "throwdown".  We narrowed the subject down a bit further and decided on cupcakes.  The kids were assigned the role of judging.

Now anyone who knows me, knows I love to bake (since I love sweets so much) but Carol and Jean share my love of baking. So, it seemed like a good match up.  Since the kids were judging the original idea was to not let them see each of our entries.  We worried that they would pick one over the other if they knew who made it.  

I had a lot of fun getting ready.  I tried out 4 different recipes.  I was relieved when Todd returned from his trip that week as I needed some help in my "taste kitchen".  Each of the recipes seemed to be missing something.  The kids were thrilled to eat the "rejected" cupcakes. (Brenna would sweetly insist that each of them were worthy of being entered into the contest.) Ultimately, I decided on a chocolate cupcake, with Heath Bar pieces, and a vanilla buttercream frosting.  

When we arrived at the Parmas I was greeted with their very adorable cupcakes.  They certainly had outdone me in the "creative" department (and my scores would reflect that at judging).  Here are the contestants


(and I was happy to be there so I have no idea why I am making that face in this picture!) 

and our entries....

As you can see, the judges took their jobs very seriously.



And the results.... well it was a close race. I got tanked on decorations (and you can see why) but recovered a bit on taste. We were convinced that they kids knew which cupcake belonged to which baker, so it was not quite a "blind" vote. In the end, I scraped out a victory.

I had a blast, but do not think that I can bake another cupcake for some time. Rumor has it that the next Throwdown is for cookies. I will definitely have to get my game on for that one!