This afternoon I had the pleasure of attending the second Cupcake Camp, held here in San Francisco at the Get Satisfaction offices in South Park. For some reason, I was expecting a relatively small, civilized, fun event in South Park, with a few people, maybe 100 at the most, a bunch of cupcakes and some friendly conversation. Some of those expectations were met, some were vastly exceeded (or plain crushed). Here’s what greeted me when I got there:

The event was planned to roll out progressively over the 3 hours set aside. Every 10 minutes, a new batch of cupcakes would be presented to the crowd, who would devour them (almost instantly), then wait anxiously for the next round. Here’s the timeline showing when each variety was planned to come out:

And this is what it looked like when each 10 minute timeslot rolled around:

I counted 18 timeslots, with between 4 and 8 varieties scheduled in each slot. According to Ariel (one of the organizers), there were 2,016 registered cupcakes for the event! On the event posting and on their website, the organizers were suggesting that people “be prepared to take leftover cupcakes home”. It don’t think that was going to be a problem since most cupcakes barely even made it to a table before being scooped up.

I managed to score 3 different cupcakes/tastes, and that was only really possible if you were standing immediately next to a table when a batch came out. A highlight was the “Elvis Cupcake”, also known as “The Graceland”. Apparently it contained (fixed, as per comment from Ryan):

• Banana Cake
• Cream Cheese/Dark Chocolate Molten Middle
• Peanut Butter Frosting
• Brown Sugar-Cured Bacon

Seriously. Can you say heart-attack?

There’s a “best in show” competition with a few different categories, so hopefully I’ll be able to link to the results tomorrow on that. Huge congratulations to Ariel, Cindy, Lyn and Marianne for organizing what turned out to be a huge event (and a huge success)! I believe this is the start of a Cupcake craze that will sweet the globe.

UPDATE: The winners have been announced!