Sweet's Chocolate-Iced Doughnut Cupcake (all photos: Sarah Knight)

CUPCAKE CAMP RECAP: PART II

“Cupcake Camp?? What IS it?”

I was asked this every time I mentioned the event I would be attending on behalf of Public Radio Kitchen.

“Um…professional and amateur cupcake bakers are going to meet up and share cupcakes…and a few hundred other people are going to come and eat them.” This is a very simplistic description of what was to become Cupcake Camp Boston’s inaugural cupcake swap.

Over the last few years I’ve become an amateur cupcake connoisseur, if there is such a thing. I try to find cupcake shops in the cities I visit. I invent occasions to stop by the local shops. I can sometimes be persuaded to bake my own, as in chocolate-Guinness cupcakes with cream cheese frosting for St. Patrick’s Day. All of this could not prepare me, however, for that which was Cupcake Camp the night of April 15th.When I arrived at 7pm, the line was queued pretty far down Somerville Ave. I entered before general admittance and was still overwhelmed. Tables lined up against the walls of the room teemed with cupcakes. Big ones and small ones of all colors and flavors, some of them tended by their talented makers, some left in open boxes to speak for themselves. There was no introduction or method or procedure. As soon as the crowd started filing in, there were hands reaching, knives splitting and paper liners cast aside.

Cupcake Camp is self-serve

I went into the evening thinking there would be two types of bakers, amateur and professional. I found everything in between. There seemed to be a sliding scale from home baker for fun to owner/operator of multiple shop locations. There were men and women who run home businesses for delivery, some just beginning their business, some scouting store locations. There were even a couple of businesses that had developed their niche, found their baking space and had their openings scheduled for the near future. Eric Bertelsen, owner of Sin Cupcakes, currently runs a delivery business, but said he came to see people’s faces as they try his confections–a chance he rarely gets.

The Devil made me do it.

I had a few reasons of my own for attending: seeing new types of cupcakes, learning about the different places to find great cupcakes in Boston, meeting fellow cupcake enthusiasts and, of course, having the chance to taste. The people I met had their own reasons. Jenna Perette of jennaCAKES wanted to see the different types of cupcakes and said she “…didn’t realize how much love people had for cupcakes.” Adie Sprague, head baker of Treat Cupcake Bar, thought that “a million cupcakes in one room is the best thing ever.”

Treat's Decorate-Your-Own-Cupcake bar

The cupcake consumers varied from the hard core to the casual. The first gals I talked to said they came with a “slice and grab” strategy based on past experience: they had attended a similar event and made the amateur’s mistake of consuming whole cupcakes for every flavor that caught their fancy. A fair number of people toward the end of the night hadn’t pre-planned the Camp at all—they simply saw the line and decided to jump in after hearing “free cupcakes!”

Chocolate Maple Bacon (yes, bacon!) Cupcakes

Comedy and tradegy went hand in hand. There was split silence, then an empathetic collective groan when a tray of pristine cupcakes–presumably headed home with someone–was inadvertently toppled and lost entirely to the cold, hard surface of the floor.

The Fallen

The crowd waned as the night wore on, but there seemed little chance of the Camp running out of cupcakes, a ‘180’ from Anita (one of the event organizers) having to beg people early on NOT to box up dozens of treats when there were still 100+ people in line to come in (“Please don’t kill me!” she added…they didn’t).

JennaCakes' Boston Cream Pie cupcakes

One of the strangest predicaments was the short supply of napkins. We all left kind of sticky and smelling of frosting.

Looking ahead, I hope to see Cupcake Camp happen all over again in Boston in 2011. If it does, I’ll bring some napkins.

Better luck next year for this red velvet soul

Read “Happy Campers” (PRK’s Cupcake Camp Recap: Part I)