Mmm… Butternut

Four bakeries won the top six awards at the second annual Cupcakes in the Park festival on Saturday. The event, benefiting the Helen Ross McNabb Center, was held in Krutch Park Extension.

A blackberry moonshine cupcake from The Cup took first place in both the judges’ and people’s choice categories. The Rocky Top cupcake from Scrumps won second place in the people’s choice category while a pumpkin cupcake with cinnamon glaze from Everything Iced took second place from the judges and third place in the people’s choice. A pumpkin spice cupcake from Mer Mer’s Bakery won third place from the judges.

The celebrity judges were Chef Walter Lambert from WVLT-TV, Kim Hansard from Star 102.1, Heather Grubb from The Next Great Baker, Mike Craigen from the Knoxville Ice Bears, Chef Garrett Scanlan from A Fork in the Road, and Erin Donovan from Visit Knoxville. Whitney Kent from WVLT-TV and I served as emcees.

Whitney was asked to choose the winner of the booth appearance category and I was asked to choose the most unique flavor, based only on the description. In other words, I had to pick a winner without tasting it.

Whitney’s winner was It’s All So Yummy Cafe, which served a chocolate passion cupcake. It may seem that my choice was obvious, but I really did put a lot of thought into it.

Blackberry moonshine from The Cup was a contender, as was Bananas Foster from Gigi’s. However, I gave the ribbon to a butternut squash cupcake from Pellissippi State’s Culinary Arts program. It was a butternut squash cake with cinnamon frosting topped with hazelnut crunch. There was one other thing. The center of the cupcake contained a filling of homemade fig jam. When I got to taste all my contenders later on, I was glad that I picked the one I did. It was outstanding.