THAW 2010

On Thursday, May 6, I packed up 600 mini cupcakes and hauled them over to Sodo in Seattle. Why? Because I was a sponsor of THAW 2010. THAW is a fashion show and fund raiser for Huntington's disease. To visit the event's website, click here. The auction that they held raised over $26,000. It was a very successful event and I am glad to have been a part of it.



Some of the other sponsors were: Via Tribunali, Beauty.com, Vitamin Water, Smart Water, Cafe Vita, and Absolut Vodka. If you go to THAW's website and click on "sponsors," my name is up there with all the other big ones!





These were the guys from Via Tribunali, a fabulous local pizza place. They were making individual pizzas all night that were just delicious. I highly recommend them.



Smart Water and Vitamin Water were sponsors of the events, so there were no shortages of tasty Vitamin Water Zeros or ice cold water.



There was even a Vitamin Water Zero lounge to kick back, relax, and drink some Vitamin Water in. Fun!

Now, for the dessert. I made 3 different kinds of mini cupcakes for the event: lemon poundcake with blackberry buttercream, chocolate cake with bailey's buttercream, and carrot cake with spiced cream cheese frosting. People kept coming back for more, so I guess that means they liked them. I had a table set up in the VIP section of the event, which was upstairs, alongside swankily lit lounges and tables from other local restaurants and bars.



I set up my table early, and then I got to walk around and look at all the other sponsors who had set up tables. A Seattle restaurant called Tango was also set up in the VIP section, and the pastry chef came over and told me she had seen my blog. I was so excited. It reminded me to thank all my readers for coming to my blog. Having readers who visit my blog and leave such nice comments is a real treat. So, thank you!


Also, the editor of Seattle magazine, Rachel Hart, stopped by, along with the owner of Trophy Cupcakes (my former employer), Jennifer Shea. They gave me great encouragement and said really nice things about my cupcakes and the typography of the signs I made.



Overall, I can't even imagine how the event could have gone any better. I had a great time, helped benefit an important cause, got to bake a ton, and got the word out about my blog. I hope if you're in Seattle around this time next year, you attend the event.


Have a nice weekend!

Also, for recipes:

the lemon+blackberry cupcakes were the recipe used for my cakespy feature: here

The chocolate+bailey's is my chocolate cupcake: here

Bailey's Buttercream

2 sticks unsalted butter, softened
1 1/4 cup powdered sugar
1 1/2 tablespoons coffee extract
1 tablespoon whiskey

Beat butter until smooth and creamy. Add powdered sugar, coffee extract, and whiskey. Beat thoroughly and transfer to a piping bag to frost cupcakes.

And here are the carrot cupcakes: here



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Cupcake Camp Part II

Woah. Cupcake camp was crazy. I've never seen so many cupcake-crazed people in my life. Overall, it was a fun event that benefited a good cause. I think everyone who brought cupcakes deserves a pat on the back. Or at least a nice, firm handshake. New cupcakes were supposed to be brought out every 15 minutes, but things didn't go as planned. Hundreds of people showed up for this thing. Which is great because that means the Hope Heart Institute made over $5000! Bravo, cupcake-eaters.


After about two hours, the quantity of cupcakes is visually represented by the image below (chocolate cupcake with salted caramel frosting by cupcake royale, the same flavor I brought!):



mostly because people took this amount of cupcakes:



I'm not going to lie, it was pretty frightening. There was a line out the building, around the block. I honestly thought maybe 300 people would show up to this thing over the course of the whole day. Boy was I wrong.



The next couple pictures are of the cupcakes I brought, carrot with spiced cream cheese frosting and chocolate salted caramel. I had to be sneaky taking pictures because I didn't want to get yelled at or be accused of trying to cut in line to steal the cupcakes. Or seem like a stalker for randomly taking pictures of people. The pictures aren't really in focus at all because I had to be so sneaky, but you can see them on people's plates or in the cute pink boxes I brought them in.







In terms of attendance, cupcake camp seattle was a huge success. the event planners (bella cupcake couture) tried to remind people to only take 5-8 cupcakes, but people simply didn't listen. no one could have anticipated how many people would come and the hosts did the best that they could.



This picture is kind of random. I just thought it was cool that someone made a little milk sculpture.



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Bake Sale

I'm sorry! I baked 6 kinds of cookies for a bake sale I held on Wednesday for the Susan G. Komen breast cancer foundation, but it was too dark to photograph. I just didn't have time to do it in the morning, so instead, I post a photo-less entry. Makes me so sad. I made chocolate sandwich cookies, vanilla-lemon sandwich cookies, chocolate caramel shortbread, chocolate chip cookies (got help with these as I was about to fall asleep and cry from exhaustion at 10:00 pm), lemon bars, & vanilla raspberry sandwich cookies. I made some money for the foundation, which was great, but I still wish I'd been able to show how nice they looked all together. I hope I can make something soon, but these next couple weeks are my finals, so I'll be going crazy as is. Hope you're enjoying summer so far.
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