Here are the results…needless to say we are thrilled with the outcome!

Best Traditional
1st Place:  Big Man Bakes “Red Velvet”
2nd Place:  Blue Cupcake “Sweet and Salty Vanilla”
3rd Place:  Southern Girl Desserts “Red Velvet”

Best Original
1st Place:  My Delight Cupcaker “Breakfast Cake”
2nd Place:  Jus Minis “Caramel Banana”
3rd Place:  Two Parts Sugar “Chocolate Covered Strawberry”

Best Overall
1st Place:  Jus Minis “Caramel Banana”
2nd Place:  My Delight Cupcaker “Breakfast Cake”
3rd Place:  Two Parts Sugar “Chocolate Covered Strawberry”

So there you have it…we took 3rd place in the Best Original category and what we were most excited about was taking 3rd  (out of 54 cupcakes) in the Best Overall category. Congratulations to all the bakeries who attended…it was an accomplishment just baking all those yummy cupcakes and presenting them along side all of your beautiful displays. To all the other bakeries who placed…awesome job! Again a super-duper big giant thank you to everyone who helped….you all played a huge role in our success.

I can’t believe I’m saying this, but Two Parts Sugar is headed to the Academy Awards. Okay, Monica, breathe. It’s still amazing to me how this even happened.

So, back in November I received a call from a man that literally changed my outlook on life. My family and I were dealing with some personal issues that made me feel like my world was falling apart. I don’t think I can even begin to tell you about the intensity of running a start-up business, not to mention balancing it with a husband, a household, and three children. Needless to say it can be overwhelming. This particular day (keep in mind I had a 4 day old baby at the time…so emotions/hormones were all over the place) I had a breakdown. I didn’t know if this business was what was right for me or our family…I was having second thoughts.  I gotta tell you, I think that way a lot…no, really, A LOT. But, at the end of the day, I think about the smiles our creations bring to peoples faces, the opportunity to give back, and really, I just LOVE doing what I do. Also, it seams as though when ever I am super swamped with work, or having a “moment” of doubt, something fantastic happens. Well this time, it was a phone call.

A few hours after my “meltdown” I get a phone call. I answer the phone…the man on the other end asks for me. I say hi and he starts in with a proposal for a booth at the Academy Awards. I just kinda brush it off and explain we are still somewhat of a start up business and do not generate the capital to fund an event like  this. He then puts me on hold to speak with his business partner. He gets back on the phone and says he may be able to “work” something out. Long story short…WE ARE GOING TO THE ACADEMY AWARDS!

We will be participating in the Academy Awards Gifting Suite and supplying our yummy goodies to the “stars”. We will also be putting together some “sweet” swag bags which will include some goodies from Kitchen Couture, Sugar Cat Studio, and Dazzle and Chunk…we will share with you soon! We are so grateful for this opportunity and cannot wait for the event!

For all of you out there…bakers or not, please realize the lesson here. When you feel like your world is falling apart, realize good things can still happen. If you are doing something you absolutely love, don’t give up on your dreams. My dad always said “if it were easy, everybody would be doing it.”

Where to even begin…..the beginning? So, we got word the 2010 LA Cupcake Challenge was coming up and immediately we began to plot on our flavors and presentation. We originally had an idea to coordinate one of our flavors with The Real Housewives of Orange County. We were able to get in contact with Jo De La Rosa and put our efforts in to full swing. We pitched our idea to her and it didn’t quite fit her personality and who she is today. She was super sweet and we all came up with another idea in order to incorporate a little bit of who she is and combine it with our yummy cupcakes. Thus the “Two Parts,” one part “naughty,” one part “nice” was born. We came up with flavors that we thought were representative of both “parts”.

Our “naughty” cupcake was our chocolate covered strawberry, a rich chocolate cupcake topped with fresh strawberry buttercream, sprinkled with fresh cut strawberry pieces and then we dipped that little sucker in chocolate (although we were running out of time the day of and some ended up with just a dollop of chocolate as opposed to the dip). Our “nice” cupcake was what we call the Vanilla Throwback, which was basically a play on my all time favorite cupcake growing up….rainbow chip. It is a moist vanilla cupcake infused with vanilla bean, topped with our vanilla bean icing with rainbow chips mixed in (ahhh…the memories of my first grade cupcakes). Fun right? Well, we didn’t stop there. Michele from Kitchen Couture who has created a line of aprons to be sold exclusively through our site (*coming soon) designed the cutest apron to go along with our theme…it was of course reversible with one part reflecting the “naughty” side and one the “nice”. Wait, there’s more…Alison from Sugar Cat Studio designed some super cute wrappers for our cupcakes too (1,400 to be exact!!!).

Speaking of the 1,400 wrappers, we also did our trademark toothpick toppers…that’s one for each of the 1,400 cupcakes we made. Let’s do the math here…1,400 toothpicks, double sided= 2,800 cirles that need to be printed and cut out…glued together and then this year we decided to add some bling, that’s 1,400 mini pearls/black rhinestones glued to each topper…yikes! We made 3 stands for each of the two flavors which were adorned in the same fabrics/embellishments as the apron and wrappers. It was a lot of time consuming and tedious work, but we loved how it turned out!

The week leading up to the event all three of my little ones were sick, so it was in and out of urgent care all week long (as they could not all just get sick the same day…had to be every other day to keep me on my toes ) Needless to say between family life and business it was a crazy week. The night before my husband tended to the kiddos while my sister finished up last minute details, and I headed off to the kitchen to start baking. Start time: 10:00 p.m. …finish time, literally to the wire…1:00 p.m. I had not realized how long it was going to take to dip each of those cupcakes…eeeek! So, about half of them missed their dip in the chocolate pool and were drizzled instead. Lesson learned. Oh, and…all our our liners began to peel away from the cupcakes, at that point there was really nothing I could do about it. I have to be honest…it looked so awful I was ready to throw in the towel. I thought about everyone that had contributed and realized quitting was not an option. Then, I remembered we had those gorgeous wrappers from Sugar Cat Studio and they would disguise the flaw! I headed home, we loaded up, I kissed the girls and we were on our way (2 hrs later than planned). I had planned on getting there extra early to choose a good spot and have everything up and ready well before the doors opened….oh well.

We arrived and parked in between Fairy Cakes Bakery and Meringue bakeshop. I was thrilled with our spot because I follow them both on twitter and had been wanting to meet them. So far, so good. We started assembling our display and quickly realized it was taking much longer than planned. We were still putting out cupcakes when everyone started rolling in. It was so busy. I don’t remember last year being such a mad dash. We were a lot closer to the door this year, so I think that may have had something to do with it. Feedback was great and I’ll admit I was very nervous this year, much more so than last year. When it’s your first go around, no one really expects anything…we had been in business for only 3 months, so if we hadn’t placed, it’s not like anyone would notice. This year we have lots more customers and cupcake pals, so the pressure was definitely on. I just decided I would not let the pressure get to me…we had a fun theme going and just wanted to have a good time. I finally met all these people I felt were friends due to our connections on Facebook and twitter…Elise: The Cupcake Activist and hubby, Nichelle from Cupcakes Take The Cake (Rachel was there too but I didn’t have the privilege of meeting her), all the participants, my neighbors Kerena and Kristen, and lots of facebook fans. It was really pretty neat.

The cutest Two Parts Sugar fans ever

I am now realizing as crazy as this event is for all of us bakers participating, I love it! It is so much fun to meet other people as passionate about this business as we are. All the attendees are awesome and so friendly I can’t say enough good things about everyone attending. And, I have to tell you this is definitely a group effort….I couldn’t have pulled it all together without the help of my hubby running to get me all the last minute things I needed and for being SO patient…My genius of a brother for all of his creative ideas…My sister (coworker) for all the tedious details she helped finalize…My mom for helping me with the girls and keeping me sane…Michele from Kitchen Couture and Alison from Sugar Cat Studio for really pulling the whole look of our display together. YOU GUYS ROCK! All in all we had a blast and can’t wait until next year!

I also want to personally apologize for not delivering on our special guest Jo De La Rosa….We literally found out on our way to the event she was not going to be able to make it due to personal reasons. We appreciate her participation and wish her all the best.

What do you get when you combine sinfully sweet treats, sultry fashion, and a sexy songbird….

…Two Parts Sugar and the L.A. Cupcake Challenge, of course!!!  On February 20^th the cupcake innovators of Two Parts Sugar will be teaming up with Kitchen Couture and Sugar Cat Studio to compete for the title of best cupcake in all of southern California as they go head to head with 18 other bakeries and cupcake winner hopefuls.

This year we are hoping to leave a lasting impression on the competition with our signature flavors & unique presentation. While yes, we are ultimately there to win, we really wanted to focus making it fun for everyone. We decided to play off of “Two Parts” Sugar…one part “naughty” one part “nice”.   Our booth will not only feature fun & sweet cupcakes, but we will be bringing “sexy back” with a very special guest who will help glam up the competition.  We will be hosting special guest & recording Artist Jo De La Rosa (formerly of Bravo’s The Real Housewives of Orange County and Date My Ex).  The up and coming artist will help us showcase our delectable treats – essentially putting the “icing” on the competition.  Every woman can relate to the naughty and nice side of their personalities.  Even the sweetest person is capable of being a little mischievous at times, and our concept is to deliver something that most people can relate to.” Our love of cupcakes and quest for fun, plus De La Rosa’s captivating charm promises that spectators won’t be disappointed.

From the cameras to the stage

Jo De La Rosa is best known for her starring role on the BRAVO mega hit “The Real Housewives of Orange County.”  Jo starred in seasons 1 and 2 of the show where she played herself as the sexy newcomer to the gate-guarded and ultra-exclusive community of Coto De Caza.  With the popularity of her character, Jo continued on, landing her own show on BRAVO called “Date My Ex” in which fans got to watch the misadventures of her dating life as she moved to L.A. to pursue her career in music.

With pop culture’s high demand of reality television, recording executives took notice of Jo’s singing and dancing talent on the show and offered her a record deal, transitioning this Latin beauty from the cameras to the stage.  Jo’s first album, Unscripted, was released in summer of 2008.  Jo is currently back in the studio writing and working with producers on her second album.  Her new single, “A Good Thing” is due to come out in Spring 2010 with a brand new music video. She is also the new face for the Fall 2009 handbag collection of Rough Roses which is featured on numerous billboards and buses throughout the Los Angeles and New York areas.

Don’t forget to pick up your tickets here!

“Sprinkling” the community with LOVE!

As many of you following our Blog may already know, one thing we love just as much as cupcakes is our community. We love to help out where we can in giving back to help others in need. My husband has a wonderful wrestling program where he coaches wrestlers and trains them to become elite wrestlers at the high school level. He coaches kids from many different schools, including Trabuco Hills and Rancho Santa Margarita High Schools. A few of the parents who are involved with the schools contacted us about some fundraising events. We were happy to lend a hand. We were able to donate cupcakes and gift certificates to the Trabuco Hills High School Wrestling Team for fundraising events. Also, we participated in the Rancho Santa Margarita Senior Fashion Show with a donation of cupcakes and gift certificate.

While these were smaller fundraisers that were for organizations we were familiar with, we were later informed about another cause that we could help with…..The Arthritis Walk. We learned about a girl named Faith who suffered from Juvenile Arthritis. She quickly became an inspiration to us all. We attended The Arthritis Walk 1,000 cupcakes in hand and enjoyed the day with many other volunteers and Arthritis survivors. We believe in helping others when we can. We all feel truly blessed to be able to do something we LOVE and will continue to share it with as many people as we can. Zen Cupcake calls it Cupcake Karma and we couldn’t believe in anything less. 

If you weren’t there….YOU MISSED OUT!

Yesterday, we attended the 2009 Arthritis Walk and it was AMAZING! A little while back I found out about a little girl named Faith who was 9 years old and suffered from Juvenille Arthritis. Her story was so inspirational I decided we had to get involved. We started team “one part Faith, two parts sugar” and we committed to donating cupcakes to the Arthritis kick off dinner as well as the Walk itself. Well, the walk has come and gone and we could be happier with the outcome.

I can’t even begin to tell you how amazing this event was. I was flying solo on this event (one sister had to work, the other is pregnant and on bed rest), but knew I could handle it. I arrived at the Irvine Great Park at about 6:00 am, 1,000 cupcakes in hand! As I walked through the event grounds I was just amazed. There were all kinds of booths and fun activities being set up. I had no idea how big this event was. I made my way to my booth and began to set up. I was done early (my display was nothing elaborate), so I went to see where I could help. I found Isella and she gave me the job of posting pictures onto this GIANT folding picture board. First, we had to stand this thing up….wish someone could have taken pictures of us doing so, cause it was a riot. Picture 2 little women lifting a giant folding contraption that was a good 8′ x8′ and weighed at least ….well I don’t know how much it weighed, but it was HEAVY!  I asked her who the pictures were of and she told me they were all people who suffer from arthritis. After she told me that, as I pinned each picture on to the board (especially the ones of the children) my heart sank a little more. I pulled myself together and completed my task. I was really starting to feel pretty good about joining this great cause. 

After posting hundreds of pictures, I headed off to my booth to display the cupcakes we had made for the day. Before I knew it, people were piling in through the gates! There were SO MANY teams and smiling faces. 

Along with the actual walk (3 mile and also a 1 mile for those who suffered from Arthritis and couldn’t do the full 3) then were tons of festivities. The morning started off with made to order omelets, doughnuts, bagels, fresh fruit, breakfast bars, coffee, juice, and water…..all complimentary! There was a stage for daily announcements and a live band, who played music all day long!  

There was a kids zone with bouncers, hockey, crafts, tattoos (temporary of course), face painting, clowns, balloon animals, bubbles, raffles, cotton candy, popcorn, candy, ice cream, and a fire truck…again, all complimentary! 

Walmart and Coca-Cola were sponsors for the event….so, there were hot dogs, chips, and soda for lunch! There were also tables with all kinds of goodies! Snacks, candy, popsicles,  banners to sign, crafts, raffles, and CUPCAKES….all FREE!

There really was something for  EVERYONE…

…it was a great event for family, friends and lots of FUN! Here are a few of the attendies enjoying some of our cupcakes:

It was so great to see such a huge turnout and everyone coming together for such a good cause. We will definitely be participating again next year and will have a huge team joining us!

Here it is, another post and opinion on our LA Cupcake Challenge entries!

Los Angeles Times “Daily Dish” just posted their views on the competition and we’re happy with the results!  Self proclaimed “white chocolate hater” Elina Shatkin raves about our white chocolate macadamia nut cupcake! When describing the event she says:

Ultimately, it was all about unexpected riotous flavor pairings and finds, though many a cupcake was undone by frosting that was too sweet and overpowered the cake. But the white chocolate macadamia cupcake from Two Parts Sugar managed to melt the arteries of this die-hard white chocolate hater.

Thanks Elina for the awesome review! We’re are so glad to hear you liked our cupcakes! 

Again, I just can’t say enough good things about this event, how it was conducted, and just how nice all the competitors and guests were.  We’ll definitely be at next year’s Challenge!

Our day at the challenge!

So, we just got back from the LA Cupcake Challenge and what a whirl wind! First, I have to say, and I speak for all of us hear in the Two Parts Sugar kitchen, we really felt like we were a bit out of our element going into this competition. We just launched our website in January, so we are rather new to the scene. Regardless, I really feel as though we fit right in and we got plenty of positive feed back!

Before I get into the details of the competition, I want to share with you a little bit of our journey leading up to the “big day”. First, I had been scowering the internet trying to find a competition we could enter. I found the LA Cupcake Challenge a while back and would google it every once in a while to see when it would pop up again. Unfortunately, I found out about it on Cupcakes Take the Cake and I thought it was too late.  I went to the cupcake challenge website, found the contact info and called the man in charge. He explained to me that the event was booked, but someone might drop out, thus leaving a spot open for us. He asked that I forward him a copy of our logo, so that he would have it on hand for the site in case something opened up. So, I sent the logo ASAP, along with a short explanation about how much we’d love and appreciate him getting us in. My pleading did the trick. March 5 we were informed we were IN! 

So, I’ll try and keep this brief. My sister (the chef) and my husband (the hero) accompanied me to the event. We took our signature raspberry red velvet and created a white chocolate macadamia nut cupcake just for the challenge. We made a stand by hand which included sawing, sanding, priming and painting! It was important to us that our whole display was unique. We didn’t want the same round or square stands you see everywhere. Then, we printed toppers and using a hand punch, cut out 2,000 circle paper  toppers. Next was glueing two of each (one side was our logo, the other side the flavor) to a toothpick. Two words: long and tedious. It was well worth it though. Who wants someone to walk away from there booth, take a bite of their delicious cupcake and mistaken it for another companies….not me! Then there was the decorative display. We wanted something simple and fresh that would lend a visual to the flavors of the cupcakes. We made a small sack out of burlap, hand painted the Mauna Lao logo on it and filled the bag with shelled macadamia nuts. It was then placed on a palm leaf and adorned with tropical flowers. For the raspberry side of things, we simply laid a basket  atop  some leaves and had the fresh raspberries spilling out. We were thrilled with the finished product.

So, the day arrives and we’re basking in the essence of cupcake greatness. We set up and the cupcake consumers came piling in. We got lots of great feed back from everyone, and met some really great people. We were lucky enough to have been interviewed by a few different people, lots of people took pictures, and we had a blast all around. The only negative thing I can say about the event was towards the end, some people got a little greedy with the cupcakes. With the purchase of your ticket, you are entitle d to try one of each cupcake. There were some people who began asking for boxes left over from the competitors. At first., I thought, ya that’s cool, how are they going to try all these cupcakes with those tiny plates? The plates were maybe 4″ round. Then it dawned on me as the event began to wind down. People began to take them to go.  Hey, I’ll tell you, I am not one to let a cupcake go to waste, if there’s extra when the event is over, by all means, have at it. But, in this case, the event was not over, people were coming and grabbing cupcakes to take home before everyone had a chance to try them all. I must have had a least a dozen people come up to our table and missed out on our raspberry red velvet because others felt the need to help themselves. Now, you have to understand, while yes this is a fun event, there is a purpose behind it.  All of these bakeries entered with one goal, to win! By depriving any of the ticket holders (voters) a cupcake from anyones table is a potential vote being taken away. I’m not kiding, there were people with bakery boxes maybe 2 feet by 18″ full with mini cupcakes…that’s a heck of a lot of cupcakes! We did go with the intention of having people taste our cupcakes, so, we were more than happy when people requested seconds (or thirds), and happily obliged.

Now, I followed the rules and waited until the end to taste the competition’s entries. My husband and sister tried some first and then directed me to the “good stuff”! Among my favorites were Hotcakes Bakes strawberry….YUM! It was perfect. The cupcake was not to heavy, not to light, it was so moist and the icing delicious. I also enjoyed the pina colada cupcake from Fairy Cakes, I love anything coconut. I have to say it was a bit more frosting than I prefer, and if not given the flavor I would’ve guessed coconut, the pineapple flavor did not have a huge presence. but it was good.  I have to be honest though…those were the only ones I ate. Wait…I did say I had three right? I confess…I ate two of the strawberry ones from Hotcakes Bakes! I’m sure they were all fabulous, but the nausea (morning sickness) was kicking in. I really want to commend all the bakeries who entered. From the cupcakes to the display, everything looked awesome.

We are truly grateful to have been a part of this event and can’t wait for next year! Check back with us soon to find out the results! It may be a day or two before the scores are tallied. Thanks again to everyone who has supported us up until this point, we appreciate you all!

So, it’s just days before the LA Cupcake Challenge and I must say our stomachs are in knots (nothing a few cupcakes can’t fix). The Two Parts Sugar kitchen has perfected our recipes and are thrilled with the results! So, what are the flavors you ask.

Well, we couldn’t enter the competition and leave behind our signature raspberry red velvet, so that’s one.  For those of you not lucky enough to have tried one yet here’s the breakdown. It originally began as a traditional red velvet cupcake, topped with cream cheese frosting. After dabbling with a few different recipes, we came up with a delicious raspberry cream cheese frosting. The red velvet cake was such a beautiful color red and the raspberry cream cheese frosting was to die for, so we thought, hey, why not mix things up a bit.  This concauction was amazing…but why stop there?  We tweaked both recipes until they were just right, adding and taking away many different elements of both recipes…and viola! Our signature raspberry red velvet cupcake was born. Again, this is not your traditional red velvet, which consists of a chocolate flavor. While we still use the traditional ingredients of a red velvet, ours has a very distinctive raspberry flavor.

The other flavor we are taking is one we came up with just for the competition and are now wondering why didn’t we do this sooner! We often get our inspiration for flavors from famous past times, common desserts, ice creams, or cookies. Yes, cookies! We had actually been thinking about this one for some time, just needed that extra push to get the ball rolling. Then the LA Cupcake Challenge came along and we figured why not. So, white chocolate macadamia nut it was! This is a favorite cookie among many of our family members and friends, and is popular world wide. So, why not turn in into a cupcake. We wanted something unique, so we first checked out all the competion to be sure it was not anything used on their menus. So far so good. We then googled it…surprisingly, there were only three hits! I was sold on this flavor as our second entry. We’ve come up with a vanilla/macadamia nut cupcake, topped with a scrumptious white chocolate buttercream and sprinkled with candied macadamia nuts. Seriously, I could chow down on at least a dozen of these!

So, those are the flavors we are taking and we hope they will do well against the pretigious competition. We’ve just been informed that among the judges or media attending/covering the event are CBS (morning news) , Fox, LA Times, Metromix, TheScene.com, Singular City, The Onion, Playboy Radio, KCRW radio “Good Food”, OC Weekly, Star Magazine, Bon Appetit Magazine, to name a few. We can’t believe how big this event has grown since last year and can’t wait to be a part of it this Sunday! In a previous blog I explained the way the judging would be conducted and have just learned it will take a day or two to tabulate the votes, so the winners will be determined by Tuesday and emailed to the media and the bakeries at that point. We’ll be sure to keep you posted!

Wish us luck in our quest to be hailed as LA’s Best cupcake!

The countdown continues!

Only a few days left until the big day…the LA Cupcake Challenge 2009! The word is getting out and blogs are popping up everywhere. On Sunday, March 22, one of our favorite blogs (you all should know them by now) Zen Cupcake stated: 

We are proud to announce that a favorite cupcakery, Two Parts Sugar, is also in the running for the title of Best Cupcake. Go Team Monica!

Today, Zen Cupcake posted another two write ups about the event referring back to the Los Angeles Times “The Guide”, and mentioned us again! Then, there was the previous blog that read:

 A favorite O.C. Cupcake Baker, Two Parts Sugar of Mission Viejo is also entered in competition. Best of luck Team Monica!

WOW! No really, WOW! We are so excited to be a part of this event! We know the competition will be steep and bakeries from all over Southern California will be bringing their best recipes to enter. Again, we are thrilled to even be a part of this challenge and can’t wait to taste everyone’s creations!

A big thanks to LA Times “The Guide” and Zen Cupcake for the posts and support!