ICM:Eat Local!

Due to some technical difficulties with the blog this week, I apologize for the delay in this post. This past Monday was our first IronCupcake:Milwaukee event at the Discovery World. Surrounded by the cityscape and the views of Lake Michigan, the location was a massive hit!

How many times have you wanted to go out for dinner and had the "there's no where to go" conversation. Well, think again! The June IronCupcake:Milwaukee challenge was Eat Local – cupcakes based on your favorite Milwaukee restaurant. An excellent event with our partners, Milwaukee Food Tours, from their site:

Milwaukee Food Tours offers several exciting tours exploring neighborhoods originally settled by Italian, Irish, Polish and German immigrants. On all of our Milwaukee tours, our guides will point out architectural highlights, cultural hotspots, and great restaurants and shops while sampling flavors from restaurants along the way. We’ll talk about our city’s favorite fictional friends, Laverne & Shirley, and we’ll even visit Fonzie on our RiverWalk/Old World Third Street tour!

We were also very lucky to be joined by the team that brings us Slow Food of Wisconsin South-East. We thought it was a though provoking pairing with our mainstream restaurant challenge. SlowFoodWISE is the recipient of this month's non-profit donation. Their mission:

Seeking to create dramatic and lasting change in the food system. We reconnect Americans with the people, traditions, plants, animals, fertile soils and waters that produce our food. We work to inspire a transformation in food policy, production practices and market forces to ensure equity, sustainability and pleasure in the food we eat.

Had enough? I hope not! We were also joined again by Elizabeth Kay and the team from 99.1 WMYX, as well as Kyle Cherek of Wisconsin Foodie - this month's celebrity judge.

Partner's Pick — Best Taste: Mark & John's Cubanitas Cupcake. Chocolate and avocado cupcake topped with avocado frosting and fresh fried plantains.

Partner's Pick — Best Presentation: Natasha & Lauren's Kopp's Cupcake. A cheeseburger with the works; brown sugar cake with a brownie burger pattie in the middle, decorated with sweets to look just like a loaded burger! And as if that was not enough, these lovely ladies also took home the Overall Best Display prize! (Come on girls, we know that cute baby dressed like a Kopp's employee had NOTHING to do with it.)

Celebrity Pick — Kristin's Lopez Bakery Cupcake. A caramel churro cupcake; cinnamon butter cake with caramel filling. (entry #23)

The Queen's Choice — The Pink Squirrel Cupcake from the gang at Bryant's Cocktail Lounge. Their creation was flavored like The Pink Squirrel, a famous ice cream cocktail invented at Bryant's in the 1940's! (entry #15)


Overall Best Taste — Carly's Sticky Monkey Cupcake. Inspired by Bartolotta's Lake Park Bistro banana bread pudding. Fresh banana cake with real homemade caramel frosting. (entry #13)

Other local eateries that were paid tribute to included: The Red Dot, Mader's, Le Reve, Buca de Beppo, Oakland Gyros, Comet Café, Wisconsin State Fair, Nite Owl Drive-In, and a salute to the delicious Mexican restaurants along 5th and National.

We also gave away so many fantastic door prizes. Summerfest tickets, July 4th baking kit, and remarkable donations from our awesome supporters: AJBombers, Water Buffalo, Goldi, A Woman's Touch, a drawing (see one of his illustrations at the top of this post) from our little bro, Stu and several awesome packs from City Tins.

And something amazing happened on Monday night. We had our first SOLD OUT night. Yes, more people than cupcakes. If you were turned away, we are so sorry -- our recommendation is to get your tickets online which guarantees your entry into the event. Do keep in mind that even with online tickets, cupcakes are first come first served so it is always best to be on time for IronCupcake. :-)

Be sure to check out our Eat Local slide show below, with special thanks every month to James Conway Photography.