It was the day of the competition: two recipes, one oven, four tasters.
The excitment reached fever pitch as the contenders took their place on the counter.
On the left corner the Primrose Bakery, on the right the Hummingbird Bakery.... drum roll please.
Round on: Primrose.
The recipe called for a mixture of self raising and plain flour and required different stages of mixing and beating. A hand held mixer was required. I've never 'mixed' for so long for any other recipe EVER but the resulting batter was light and fluffy and almost like a mousse. My helper turned into a keen bowl-licker at the end. Always a good sign.
Also I got 'a lot' of batter. I didn't use muffin size cases, nor 'mini' muffin ones but normal fairy cakes ones and I ended up with 20 twenty of these:
Very smooth tops and a diving smell in the air!
Round two: Hummingbird.
The method is simpler in principle... in actual fact I found quite hard mixing such small qty of ingredients to the desired consistency, especially at the beginning of the process. It was probably my fault... my mixer is a 'cheap and cheerful' one with just two speeds and only one type of 'paddles' so keep this in mind...
The batter was much less - but just the right qty for 12 fairycakes size cases - and not as smooth. My helper declined to lick this batch... oh dear.
The cupcakes looked good though:
Golden and 'prettier'... however... bizarrly... no smell at all. Weird.
The tasters were called in and sat down. Rules were read out - no 'shovelling of whole cupcake into mouth', no mixing two cupcakes in same bite etc. Also drinking water in between specimen to avoid cross contamination of tastes was compulsory.
To recap:
and
The judging:
Three out of four judges preferred the look of the Hummingbird cupcake,
The Hummingbird dough was lighter and the crumbs bigger, it clinged to the case more.
The Primrose cupcake turned out somehow denser with fine crumbs.
The judges voted 3 to 1 in favour of Primrose. They said they were 'tastier' and 'sweeter' 'taste more like a cake'. Hummingbird was a 'a bit bland'.
I have to agree, they might have looked better but they certainly lacked something.
However once chocolate frosting was applied (this time only the Hummingbird frosting was prepared as the chef had absolutely enough of cooking for a day... sorry) ALL the cupcakes were scoffed at the same speed regardless of origin.
The frosting was delicious
which goes to show; the brown stuff wins everytime.
