Cupcake Creations

There's this great contest on Lansing Mom's Like Me that I've decided to enter. It sounded fun and it got my creative juices flowing. There's a local bakery called the Sugar Shack here in Lansing and they feature gourmet cupcakes. I've never visited the store, but there's lots of rave about how good the cupcakes are and how unique some of their creations are. Their cupcake flavors are a little out of the ordinary and while they may not sound good, visitors of the Sugar Shack swear they're delicious! Some of their unique cupcake flavors include- French Toast, Dark Chocolate and Bacon, Elvis (peanut butter, banana, chocolate), Cosmopolitan, and Tiramisu. They've even had orange creamsicle, red pepper and chocolate, malted milk ball, salted caramel and grasshopper flavors. Very different than your normal chocolate or vanilla cupcake indeed.

To enter the contest all you have to do is come up with a brand new flavor of cupcake that they haven't had before and submit your flavor. There's not limit on the number of entries, but each entry has to be different from all other entries. In the end if I did happen to win, I get a $25 gift certificate to Sugar Shack and my cupcake featured in their store for a week! Sounds fun right? The contest goes until Sunday so there's lots of time entries. I started entering this morning and I've already come up with 11 different cupcake flavors! I was kind of surprised I had that many entries already. It's been fun brainstorming ideas! Here's my list so far:

1. Pink Cadillac- Strawberry cupcake with strawberry frosting that has Oreo pieces in it. (I came up with this from a milkshake I had at the Route 66 Diner in Albuquerque.)
2. Pina Colada- Pineapple cupcake with a butter rum frosting sprinkled with coconut.
3. Root Beer Float- Root beer flavored cupcake with a creamy vanilla frosting.
4. Zucchini Cupcake with Ginger Frosting- Similar to a spiced carrot cake, but with zucchini instead, topped with a cream cheese frosting that is spiced with ground cinnamon and ground ginger.
5. Chunky Monkey- Banana cupcake with chocolate pieces topped with banana frosting and sprinkled with chocolate shavings
6. Strawberry Lemonade- Strawberry flavored cupcake with lemon frosting and garnished with a fresh strawberry.
7. Rocky Road- A chocolate cupcake with a gooey marshmallow center topped with a chocolate marshmallow frosting and sprinkled with almonds and mini marshmallows.
8. Chocolate Chip Cookie Dough Cupcake- Yellow cupcake with a chocolate chip cookie dough center topped with chocolate frosting.
9. PBJ- Peanut butter cupcake with a strawberry jelly frosting topped with peanut butter chips.
10. Caramel Popcorn- Corn cake like cupcake with a caramel frosting garnished with caramel popcorn pieces.
11. Sweet Potato- The cupcake would be similar to a carrot cake, but with sweet potatoes instead and topped with a marshmallow creme frosting that is slightly browned (like sweet potatoes at Thanksgiving time with marshmallows on top! Yum!)

So are you hungry yet? This of course is making me want to make my homemade cupcake recipe. I love cupcakes so this would be fun to win. What do you think of my selection so far? Remember they're supposed to be out of the ordinary so these are no straight up chocolate and vanilla! I'll have to see what else I come up with over the next couple days and let you know!