IRON CUPCAKE: Wasabi

Last week I wrote about my newest cupcake friend - Chef Jeff of Fratello's restaurant in Milwaukee. Chef Jeff has a lot of cupcake craziness up his sleeve and, well, I love that. Last night, we had our first cupcake challenge, Iron Cupcake; secret ingredient- wasabi. The staff at Fratello's was ready to taste; plus, I brought a few tasters of my own. EJ (shown at the end of this post) dressed for the occasion! Her big brother, Jack the Boy, couldn't wait to dig into his very own non-wasabi, cupcake.

We each had our own interesting twist on how to enhance the Japanese theme. The cupcake the Chef Jeff presented was a wasabi cake with a sriracha buttercream and a caramel apple filling, top left. As you can see, my friend Mark had quite a dramatic reaction to the heat! I had toyed with the sriracha idea, but didn't walk down that path. I am very impressed that Chef Jeff did. Jeff''s combination of the heat and the sweet were high voltage and not even a little timid. I thought it was a really good execution.

My cupcake was a white chocolate cake with a mandarin orange, plum, sake filling and a white chocolate wasabi ganache, top right. (My thanks to Betty Crocker for the awesome cake and to Chockylit for the inspiration for the filling.) As you can see, my BFF, Bob, took his tasting responsibilities very seriously. The concensus was that mine worked well, showcasing the wasabi, but not too much heat to be distracting. The element that sealed the deal for mine was the filling, which was a huge hit.

While our tasting was anything but technical, server Matt, some of the kitchen staff and my friends felt like my cupcake was the most successful. Chef Jeff was a formidable challenger and I suspect I am going to have to really bring my A game if I want to keep him on his toes.

• Next challenge: Monday, May 12
• Secret Ingredient: Mustard