Cupcake Tasting Party

One of the best parts of planning a wedding is the lovely afternoon you and your fiancée spend chowing down on different flavors of cake and all kinds of icing.  After you get married, you usually don't get to do that again.  Unless of course you happen to have friends getting married who decide to host a cupcake tasting party to decide what cupcake company they'll be using instead of a wedding cake.  Cupcakes were brought from far and wide - from Oakland to Palo Alto to Berkley to San Mateo.  Five companies in all.  Thirty-five cupcakes.  Seven big kids and one little one.

These came from a new place in Berkeley called Summer Kitchen Bakeshop.  The ones with a raspberry on top had a tiny bit of raspberry ganache inside.  The buttercream icing on top was almost like whipped cream it was so light and fluffy.

I had to do a closeup on this one, perhaps the most beautiful cupcake of all, lemon meringue.  It was just like the pie, except, well, a cupcake.

These mini-cupcakes were from a place called Sibby's.

With flavors like Grandma's Chocolate Tea Cake and Snickerdoodle, how could they not win?

John and I brought some cupcakes from Sprinkles.  I was surprised the strawberry one was so amazing - extra sweet but with a real strawberry flavor.

Our smallest cupcake taster was named Bridget and probably was the only one who didn't eat herself sick on them.  You'll learn that later in life, my dear.

Natalie made up scorecards for us to rate all of the flavors and companies - how great is that?

Here is the aftermath.  There ended up being plenty left over - which is frankly surprising with John and I around.

Only a couple were left untouched, though I'm sure they're no longer so pristine.  Natalie and Mitch claimed they would bring the extras to work on Monday, but who were they kidding?