cupcake bootcamp two at the chopping block

I was beyond thrilled when the Chopping Block announced they were offering cupcake bootcamp with new recipes. My pal Christy signed up with me again, here are some pics from the day.

That's me! Our instructor this time was Quincy, we quickly gave him the nickname "Q-bones." Hard to tell if he liked it or not but we love him, he is our new CBFF (cupcake best friend forever).

Same set up as before, we made all the batters first and cooked those, took a break for lunch and then make all the frostings. The recipes this time were german chocolate with coconut caramel frosting, rhubarb with lavender whipped cream, lemon with lemon curd filling and meringue frosting, malted chocolate chip with chocolate ganache, and carrot with cream cheese frosting and candied pecans. The malted chocolate chip (big surprise) were my favorite and carrot a close second.

Here are what the german chocolate cupcakes SHOULD have looked like...

Here are ours...

Not our finest and then we had to do the lemon curd filling for the lemon cupcake twice! But the second batch was "perfect" so we felt pretty good about that.

Then we had wine and I started getting mouthy with Q-bones. Oops! Sorry QB.

Hey these look good. Chocolate chip with crushed malted milk ball topping, yummers!!

Torch time! Kind of think I need one of these, my husband however would strongly disagree. :(

Another eventful time at Cupcake Bootcamp! Keep reading for Christy's always clever and hilarious recap.

Oh Cupcake Bootcamp! How I love you so!

Um. Normally I would type something hilarious and insightful here BUT it seems like Emily pretty much covered it. So maybe I will just resort to a numbered list of awesome stuff (which, as every blogger knows, is a great fallback when you want to post but are too lazy to write something truly coherent or develop an actual idea).

1. QBONES – he is awesome! Very hands-on. I think I will take his knife skills class next.
2. The caramel topping for the German chocolate cake cupcakes was amazing. I wish our cupcakes would have turned out better, but I was happy to eat the frosting on its own. (I made it, so maybe I am biased, but I am pretty sure it was one of the most perfect frostings ever made.)
3. I met Tina the blogger, whom I loved! Emily actually already knew her from teh interwebz……… it’s such a small world.
4. There was actually a MAN IN CUPCAKE BOOTCAMP. It was crazy! He was really nice (and very cute…… a dead ringer for Ashton Kutcher!) His girlfriend needs to lock that down NOW. Seriously, how many guys do you know that would spend 5 hours on a Saturday in a roomful of women making cupcakes? Exactly.
5. Lunch was delicious, even though Q-Bones kind of had to scramble at the last minute to accommodate all the vegetarians – too bad for them, because the flank steak he prepared was yummers!
6. And not to state the obvious, but I love cupcakes. The malted chocolate chip ones were super delicious (and topped with a chocolate ganache, ALSO PREPARED, BY ME, TO PERFECTION). I wish I had one right now.

And that’s all! Happy cupcaking to all. J