ICM:CANDY - Sweet Success

Friday night, sweet delight! It was finally time for our amazing cupcake challenge with best-selling authors Karen Tack & Alan Richardson! Several hundred people were on hand, there was candy EVERYWHERE.



We had bakers dressed as Willy Wonka, the Candyland gang, Cowboys, Baseball players, Silent film stars and more. All using candy on their cupcakes and enjoying candy everywhere we turned! Candy shots, Do-It-Yourself Cupcakes (I missed the name of our winner, if it is you let me know), chocolate, Jelly Bellies, gummies, mints, lollipops, sprinkles, jimmies, sugars crystals, m&m's, gum, licorice; you name it, it was on hand. Thanks so much to Karen and Alan for raiding the Sweets & Snacks Show in Chicago to bulk up our sugar overload!



Friday was our first challenge where our new media partners, 99.1WMYX were present to run the show. WHAT A TREAT! Van McNeil, their fantastic afternoon on-air personality hit a homerun with the crowd! So excited to have them join us for our fun. Also on hand were our friends from Next Chapter Books - selling cupcake books and Downtown Dough - sharing their cupcake supplies — shout out to the Northern suburbs!



Karen and Alan were blown away by the amazing creations of all of our bakers. It was super hard for them pick just two to award as their celebrity picks for the night. Each of their winners took home a collection of goodies including Karen & Alan's books, tshirt, decorating supplies and more. After all of the deliberation was done the were able to narrow it down to:
Jean, Mary and Jake's Sew Yummy Cookies & Creme Cupcakes were inspired by White Chocolate Buttons using Hershey's Cookies 'n' Creme Candy Bar.



Their other choice was Jennifer's incredible Freedom Fusion Cupcake. A Ginger ale and candied baby ginger root cupcake topped with Chinese five spice buttercream frosting and then accented with a delicate buttermint. Her display was an amazing concoction that was all candy but looked just like a big pot full of baked beans with cornbread!


All night long, people were so excited to meet Karen & Alan, get their books signed, pose for pictures. We were sooooo lucky that they decided to come visit our little cupcake party. So very lucky.



For my Queen's choices, I could not resist the Sarah's Peanuts and Cracker Jacks cupcakes; a peanut butter cupcake with caramel buttercream sprinkled with peanuts. But the kicker...the Racing Sausages on display. So cool. Sara took home my infamous queen's septor, a cupcake canister, a set of great coupon coasters from City Tins and an AJBomber's gift card.



The winners of the popular vote were Christine's Turtle-riffic Treat, a chocolate cupcake with caramel filling, topped with chocolate frosting, chocolate and caramel syrup and a sprinkle of ground pecans. All of this in an aquarium scene of adorable little turtles.



The other popular choice was Kathy & Sarah's Cupcake Caliente! Sweet and hot cinnamon cupcake with vanilla buttercream and cinnamon flames! Both teams went home with a gift card from Water Buffalo, Downtown Dough and a massive tool kit complements from the fine folks at McCormick Spices!

This was a big event, and that would not have been possible without all of the incredibly generous friends of IronCupcake:Milwaukee, including:

• Karen Tack & Alan Richardson
• Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
  
• Van McNeil & 99.1 WMYX
• Harley-Davidson Museum
• James Conway Photography
• Too Much Metal/Smac Design
• Joe Sorge and his fantastic restaurants - AJBombers, Swig and Water Buffalo
• Streetza Pizza
• Next Chapter Books
• Downtown Dough
• Goldi Shoe Parlor
• A Woman's Touch
• MilwaukeeSportsGeeks.com
• City Tins
• the authors of Twitterworks
• Media Sandwich
• Karen Cooks It
• Bleeding Heart Bakery
• Dorie Greenspan
• TLC's CakeBoss/Carlos' Bakery
• McCormick
• Reynolds
• 
• and all of our volunteers

So many great images to share, check them out on our ICM:Candy slide show, complements of Jim Conway!