Cupcake War 4: A Piece of Cake VS Star Cupcakes
Welcome to Bahrain Cupcake War Round 4
Getting better with this productivity stuff.
Can I say that so far, out of the 8 places we've sampled, the Bahrain cupcake industry seems overwhelmingly mediocre. Essentially, pretty much everyone is using cake mix, and not very creatively even. STEP IT UP YO.
Before reading, get a better idea of how the score system works at the Cupcake War Introduction.
Nowhere to go but up!
The judges for Cupcake Round 4 are:
Noor Nooruddin: Starting to debate her love for cupcakes.
Ali Haji: At this point, he has to be here.
Zainab Abdulrahman: Baked over 100 cookies overnight.
Imran Al Aradi: Got to eat those cookies.
Ali Modara: Related to Noor and regretful of becoming guest judge after the round ended.
Moe Modara: That's right, we got a brotherly pair of guest judges. Both of whom probably won't want to come back after the stress.
The Contestants and Their Cakes:
- A Piece of Cake: Probably don't need an introduction, one of the most well known cake shops in the Kingdom, before all this cupcake hoobla.
Cupcakes being judged: Chocolate Cupcake and Carrot Cupcake
- Star Cupcakes: For some reason, this particular home business is always changing names. I think it was once Sprinkle Cupcakes, became Star, and may already be something completely different as evident on their Instagram page. Otherwise, a pretty typical cupcake business except for some funky flavor offerings.
Cupcakes being judged: Chocolate Cupcake and Pumpkin Spice
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A Piece of Cake: Chocolate Cupcake
It's always good to test out the basic flavors.
After the tasting, we rated the flavoras follows:
Noor: 6.5/10
Ali: 7/10
Zainab: 6/10
Imran: 7/10
Ali Modara: 7/10
Moe Modara: 7/10
Average: 6.75
A pretty decent start for A Piece of Cake. All judges loved that it was not a messy cake at all. The frosting was good and light, the cake itself without the frosting was not particularly outstanding, but its lightness joined in with the frosting and a chocolate filling inside make it a solid (not literally) moist chocolate cupcake. One of the judges doesn't even like chocolate cake, but decided he'd gladly eat this again.
A Piece of Cake: Carrot Cupcake
The legendary Carrot Cupcake of the Piece of Cake Kingdom.
Flavorratings:
Noor: 8/10
Ali: 9/10
Zainab: 8/10
Imran: 8.5/10
Ali Modara: 8/10
Moe Modara: 8/10
Average: 8.25
Where do I even begin? The look of surprised delight on everyone's face was the FIRST of its kind in Cupcake War so far. Let me tell you something, at least TWO of the judges here hate carrot cake. Everyone loved this cupcake.
Ali Haji: "I would buy dozens of this. It's the first time a cupcake makes me happy." Sweet Jesus hallelujah.
Zainab: "The cupcake is delicious, and has a wonderful aftertaste of cinnamon."
Imran: "ALI HAJI LIKES IT."
That being said, it WAS agreed the cupcake was a tad too sweet, so a little less sweetness and it may have been a perfect cupcake.
This gives us hope in the Bahrain cupcake industry.
Okay. Competitor. Give it your best shot!
Star Cupcakes: Chocolate Cupcake
Flavorratings:
Noor: 4.5/10
Ali: 3/10
Zainab: 4/10
Imran: 4/10
Ali Modara: 6/10
Moe Modara: 5/10
Average: 4.4
The frosting tastes like ready-made frosting, and the cake leaves bitter weird aftertaste. The cake was also very dense, and too chocolatey, especially for our judge who doesn't particularly enjoy chocolate cake.
Star Cupcakes: Pumpkin Spice Cupcake
T'is the season, so we figured why not?
Flavor:
Noor: 3/10
Ali: 1/10
Zainab: 3/10
Imran: 3/10
Ali Modara: 3.5/10
Moe Modara: 3/10
Average: 2.75
We were really excited to try this, unfortunately it wasn't the best seasonal experiment. The cupcake's overall texture was very lacking, almost like baby food. It was too "spicy", and left a strange aftertaste. The actual taste wasn't that bad, but the frosting was a bit cheesy, the texture was too soft, and there was too much spice. It was all a bit strange. A fun concept with some potential but it didn't work this time for our 6 judges. We do commend the owner for taking risks and trying new things.
Extra Point Winners:
- Appearance and Presentation (3 points):
Everyone except Moe: Star Cupcakes - There is something very cleanly appetizing about the presentation of these cupcakes, and it was a very nice touch for the owner to give us two different presentations of the same chocolate cupcake, one with the m&ms on top. They look incredibly cute.
Moe:A Piece of Cake - While the judges all agreed that the cupcakes from a Piece of Cake DO look quite good, one judge particularly preferred this more professional appearance over its cheeky competitor.
- Accessibility (3 points):
Unanimous Winner:A Piece of Cake- A regularly updated website does WONDERS for a company, guys. Not only was A Piece of Cake's website up to date, but it has a clean design, provides all necessary contact info on the first page (including address), and the entire menu up. They should, however, provide descriptions for some of their menu items and prices, as titles don't do much for the uninformed customer.
- Value for Money (2 points):
Unanimous Winner:A Piece of Cake- BD9 per dozen for Star Cupcakes and about BD1 per cupcake for A Piece of Cake, but A Piece of Cake's cupcakes were significantly bigger so we felt we got more out of it in terms of value for money.
UPDATE:We made a critical error in the information we posted here, the prices for A Piece of Cake's cupcakes are actually 500 fils per cupcake, making them even MORE worthy of our "value for money" bonus points! Since they already got the unanimous vote for value, this error doesn't affect the overall points.
- Menu and Variety (2 points):
Unanimous Winner:A Piece of Cake - Their menu is HUGE with a wide variety of both savory and sweet items, which is a possibility afforded by bigger businesses. Star Cupcakes does boast some funky flavors on their website but I don't think they're updated, because when I asked the owner she gave me a completely different list of flavors. I'd love to try "Mexican Hot Chocolate."
Grand Totals:
WINNER: A Piece of Cake
By a landslide, A Piece of Cake gave us a pretty good chocolate cupcake and a surprisingly stellar (and unsurprisingly popular) carrot cupcake, in addition to getting most of the bonus points.
Congratulations to the winner of Cupcake War Round 4!!
Stay tuned for our next round!
To get in contact with the cupcake businesses in this round:
A Piece of Cake: Official website
Star Cupcakes: Looks like they changed their name again because I can't find their Instagram, but the Whatsapp number to contact is +973 3900 8383
Tournament Bracket:
Next: Raz Cakes VS Maya Delices
Thanks for reading!
