Cupcake fans you can look forward to another fun season of this great show. D.C. Cupcakes has been signed for a second season with TLC. According to the Washington Post, it is uncertain exactly how many episodes will air for the second season.

D.C. Cupcakes is about two sisters and co-owners Sophie LaMontagne and Katherine Kallinis, who own Georgetown Cupcake in the D.C. area. The first season was a success, airing on Friday nights.

More than a million people watched the debut of D.C. Cupcakes. 1.5 million people watched the season finale.

It’s great we have even more of this sweet and fun reality TV show to enjoy. Many have fallen for the charm of D.C. Cupcakes and the two sisters who run this successful cupcakery. The past season has been so entertaining, watching them make cupcakes and help make people’s celebrations brighter and just a bit sweeter.

Cupcake and baking reality TV shows have become quite popular. Between D.C. Cupcakes, Cupcake Wars and Ace of Cakes…there is always something terrific on to help you get your “cupcake fix.” What’s your favorite cupcake or baking reality TV show? Share it with us in the comments?

(c) photo by Adrian Gtz

Share with friends

According to the New York Daily News, the Duncan Hines Daytime Emmy Awards held their Cupcake Contest Cook off at a popular New York City bakery this week. Ten hopeful bakers competed for the top prize of a trip to L.A. and to have their cupcakes made (and eaten!) by their favorite daytime celebs at a red carpet party reception for the Daytime Emmys.

The cupcake cook off was held at the Cupcake Café on West 18th Street. The contestants used Duncan Hines cake mixes to create delicious cupcakes and added their own special touches.

Wondering who won? (So were we!) The lucky L.A. bound winner is Katie Rousonelos from Madison, Wisconsin. She baked and designed a yummy red velvet cupcake with a chocolate filling and vanilla frosting – with a fresh raspberry on top! Just hearing about this yummy cupcake is making our mouths water! And red velvet cupcakes sound just perfect for that red carpet for the Daytime Emmys.

What could be more perfect that an event full of your favorite daytime television stars – and cupcakes? How exciting to think that the winner’s cupcakes will be made for a special reception for the stars. This is a cupcake contester’s prize like no other. There must have been lots of entries and yummy cupcakes to compete against. But Ms. Rousonelos’ scrumptious red velvet cupcakes were chosen as the #1 cupcake and she has won this glamorous and glittery prize. We hope she has a wonderful time on that L.A. red carpet rubbing shoulders with her favorite stars, eating her cupcakes!

We’re sure there will be lots of red carpet glamour and excitement in store as Ms. Rousonelos heads to L.A. to see the Emmys and enjoy her cupcakes at the special star-studded reception event. Congratulations to all of the entries and to the winner!

(c) photo Kosyn Kislekyo

Share with friends

Hey cupcakers! There’s a fun, new cupcake challenge out there you’ve just got to try. And it’s getting ready to start up for August – so get those baking pans a ready!

The Sweetest Kitchen has a new Mystery Box Cupcake Challenge. On the 1st of the month (every month) their challenge opens. They list a mystery ingredient and cupcakers need to compete by creating yummy cupcakes from this ingredient. Oh the possibilities we can see! This sounds so exciting and fun! We know many of you cupcakers are getting ready as we speak.

Cupcakers have 20 days to create their cupcakes. After that, all entries are posted on the blog and there is a poll for visitors to vote on their favorite cupcakes. The voting is open for five days, lots of time for fellow cupcakers and cupcake fans to pick and select their favorites from the month’s mystery batch.

When the voting has ended, 5 top cupcakes will be selected (that have received the most votes). These yummy cupcakes will go into a random drawing. And a lucky winner will be chosen from these great and scrumptious 5.

Our Top Tips for Cupcakers:

Know your ingredients. If you haven’t baked with something (a new ingredient), be patient with yourself and let yourself try a few batches to get it right. The better you know your ingredients – the stronger chance you’ll have of success.

Cupcakes don’t always have to be cute and sweet. We’ve seen lots of original and sometimes quite unusual cupcakes out there in contests and competitions. Every cupcaker has their own unique take on what a cupcake should taste like. Pair ingredients with complimentary ones and you could have a winner on your hands. Pair them with ingredients that clash – or simply don’t melt in your mouth – and you’ve got a cupcake mess instead.

Presentation matters. It’s a fact that cupcakes are often “cute.” Remember this when creating your cupcakes. Cupcakes don’t always have to be cutesy but they should be presentable. People may want to make them for a party or a special occasion. Your recipe is more likely to be chosen when it has a bit of eye-appeal.

Read the rules. Every competition or challenge has rules. One competition we saw recently put “ease of preparation” at 50% of the judge’s possible vote. Keep the rules of a competition or challenge in mind as you create your recipe. Your cupcake could be delicious and yummy but if it doesn’t follow the rules – it just doesn’t fit their qualifications and sadly – it probably won’t get picked.

So August 1st is just a few days away – get excited and put your thinking caps on! That mystery ingredient will be posted shortly and you can get to creating those great cupcakes. Good luck to all of the cupcakers and let us know if you enter – and let us know if you win the Mystery Box challenge!

Share with friends

Did you watch this week’s fun episode of Cupcake Wars on Food Network TV? If not, you missed a lot of cupcake fun and sweet surprises.

Four cupcake teams from bakeries around the country competed to bake yummy cupcakes for a glamorous red carpet charity gala for Children Mending Hearts/Women for Women in Hollywood. Suite 106 Cupcakery was the winner! The excitement continued during the episode as the teams began by baking a single cupcake, then three cupcakes and then more….finally to make 1,000 cupcakes on a custom designed stand for their cupcakes.

Sisters Christiana and Rebecca Grammer, co-owners of Suite 106 Cupcakery in California won the July 20th episode with their sweet and touching cupcakes. With flavors reminding everyone easily of childhood tastes and memories – and sweet drawings from Christiana’s daughter making the cupcake stand artistic and creative – her cupcakes were chosen as the winner. With buttermilk cupcakes, espresso and chocolate cupcakes and other sweet treats – they easily won the judges hearts (and taste buds!)

The biggest challenge was baking 1,000 cupcakes in 2 hours. Fortunately, they had 4 additional helpers to frost and bake cupcakes and also to build the customized cupcake stand. The cupcake stand featured artwork by Christiana’s daughter. With hearts and butterflies, it easily connected with the Children Mending Hearts charity, as their symbol is a butterfly. The charity gala was held at the Peter Fonda theatre in Hollywood, California.

Their cupcakes have been eaten by celebrities such as Ben Affleck, Alyssa Milano, Jimmy Kimmel and Chad OchoCinco.

Missed this fun episode? Don’t worry…it will be re-broadcast on Sunday, July 25th! Check your local listing for the show time. Enjoy the fun and yummy Cupcake Wars…we know we are!

Share with friends

Get ready for more cupcake fun and reality TV show antics with TLC’s latest show! DC Cupcakes begins this Friday, July 16th at 10 p.m. EST. It is a six-part series that follows sisters who are also business partners that own Georgetown Cupcake. Georgetown Cupcake is a small cupcakery that according to TLC’s site has become a “sweeping success.”

Sisters and partners Sophie LaMontagne and Katherine Kallinis own Georgetown Cupcake. This series will take us through their days as cupcakery owners. Watching them make pretty and yummy treats for parties, celebrations or even those who walk in craving something sweet. We imagine that owning a cupcakery must be so much fun! It will be great to watch this series and see all that goes on at Georgetown Cupcake.

According to the TLC site, the sisters began baking with their grandmother as toddlers. They first baked a cake for their grandfather’s birthday, a vanilla cake with chocolate frosting! Grandma taught them how to bake the very best way, by letting them imitate what she did in the kitchen. The sisters do not have formal training and credit their grandmother with teaching them about cooking and baking. They opened Georgetown Cupcake together on Valentine’s Day 2008. At the time, the cupcakery was the city’s only cupcakery – and it grew to great popularity. Today they bake more than 5,000 cupcakes daily and send cupcakes across the country.

How exciting to watch the growth and development of a cupcakery in this fun TLC reality show. Especially for cupcake lovers and “foodies” a show like this is truly one-of-a-kind. You can count on DC Cupcakes to give you lots of behind the scenes tips for what it is like to own a cupcakery or even a bakery – and perhaps some cool cupcake baking tips. Reality show fans will likely tune in for the (hopeful) drama and antics these shows are known for.

Share with friends

Do your cupcakes have what it takes to win the prize? Are you lauded with compliments on your yummy cupcakes at birthdays, baby showers and other special events? Enter Duncan Hines ® exciting new cupcake contest to win a fun trip to L.A. and the best seats on the Red Carpet at the 62nd Primetime Emmy ® Awards.

Duncan Hines ® is the official dessert sponsor for the 62 Primetime Emmy ® Awards and Creative Arts Awards Governors Ball. The Performers Nominee Reception is held on August 27th. The winners will receive two tickets to Los Angeles and fans in the stands bleacher seats to see all of the glamour, fashion and fun of the arrivals!

The most exciting thing about winning (other than winning of course)? YOUR recipe will be served to those glamorous and great stars at the Performers Nominee Reception! How great is that! Now that should be enough to start quite a few ovens and kitchens a-whirling and twirling with baking action, going after this great prize. The thought that your favorite television star could be biting into one of your delicious cupcakes is simply too sweet for most of us too imagine!

Get to baking now, practice your best cupcaking. Your entry must be in by July 21st 2010. That’s a Wednesday. Entries will be voted on until July 28th. The recipes with the most votes will go on to the Top 10 category. These yummy cupcakes will be then reviewed by Pinnacle Foods Group and celebrity judges. They’ll be looking at creativity, ease of preparation and of course, taste! Winners will be announced on August 3rd.

Enter here and Good Luck!

So what kind of cupcake could it take to win this fun and glamorous trip to L.A., seeing stars and getting great cupcake glory? We can only imagine. They could pick a true classic cupcake recipe, someone who takes a delicious chocolate cupcake and makes it the most delicious chocolate cupcake ever. Or they could select someone who makes a more unique flavor, say red velvet (for a red carpet). A cupcake shaped like the Emmy Award could snag the winning vote. Or a cupcake shaped like a star could appeal to the judges, something that’s glamorous and glittery and fun!

Whatever you choose to enter, we wish you Good Luck. If you become a Finalist or win the Grand Prize, let us know here and we’ll be excited to learn of your great cupcake success!

(c) photo Moi Cody

Share with friends

A new series on The Food Network aired Sunday night 7pm PST called Cupcake Wars. The contestants were from Mission Viejo California Two Parts Sugar, Montecito California Whodidily Cupcakes, Los Angeles Sweet E’s Bake Shop and from Los Angeles Hotcakes Bakes. The four bakeries competed in elimination style judging through three rounds. I won’t spoil the outcome in case you want to catch the replay of the first episode of Cupcake Wars at the Alma Awards. I will tell you that the winner of the competition was chosen to serve 1,000 cupcakes at the Alma Awards and it was nail biting to the end.

You can watch another airing of Cupcake Wars on The Food Network Jan 2 at 4pm ET.

If you watched the first episode of Cupcake Wars, what did you think? Did it inspire you to cook or get you anxious watching the competition? What would you like to see in the next episodes?

Share with friends