Out of town - Cupcake wars Round 2

Last night for mutual I was unfortunately out of town.

We had so much fun with cupcake wars last time, that we decided to do it again. But this time we invited the young men to compete against us. I heard that the young men won, which was a shock to me! It sounds like everyone had fun. Sorry I can't give you any details.

Combined: White Elephant Gift party

Last night for mutual we had our annual White Elephant exchange gift party. We ask all the youth to bring a gift under $5, we draw numbers out of a hat and let the kids choose and steal gifts. We usually supply dinner for the kids too, things like pizza or panda express. It's always a lot of fun. I actually wasn't able to make it, but I'm sure they had a great time. I heard there were eggnog cupcakes involved though, so I wish I had made it. It's a fun easy night that the youth look forward to each year.

Cupcake wars

Last night for mutual we had cupcake wars! We were inspired by this blog post. So we gathered together some ingredients. Some not pictured include strawberries, a few candy bars, nutella, and vanilla yogurt. 

We invited a sister from the relief society who is an awesome baker to help us out and teach us some cupcake decorating tips. We split into two teams and had each team pick 3 items that they had to use, and we specified that not all the ingredients could just go on top for garnish. Team one chose fruity pebbles, rolos, and bananas. Team two chose strawberries, yogurt, and nutella. 

Team one added rolos to bake within their cupcakes. These sunk to the bottom. 

Team one actually made two different kinds of cupcakes. The ones on the left are also theirs and they have fruity pebbles mixed in. The ones on the right belong to team two and have yogurt substituted in for most of the oil called for in a cake mix. 

Team two scooped out the centers of their cupcakes after they were cooked and filled them with nutella.

Here are the cupcakes ready for the judges. The purple one and chocolate one belong to team one and the strawberry one belongs to team two. Team two actually grabbed a few extra ingredients to top their chocolatey cupcake. 

Here are the cupcakes ready to go the judges. 

Sister Reed was our Relief Society helper. Her husband was nice enough to be a judge for us. 

Here is our Relief Society Sister Schneiter president deliberating over what score to give. 

We had the judges rank each cupcake on taste and presentation, and then combined the scores for an overall score. Team one's purple cupcake came in first for taste. Team two's strawberry cupcake came in first for presentation, and also won overall! 

Don't forget to clean up!

It was a really fun night that everyone enjoyed. All of the cupcakes turned out delicious!