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PRINCETON: House of Cupcakes wins TV competition

By Victoria Hurley-Schubert, Staff Writer
   Cupcakes are serious business — $10,000 serious. And House of Cupcake owners Ruthie and Ron Bzdewka are stiff competition with their sweet and savory confections.
   The fast-paced surprises began when the couple found out they were invited to be on the Food Network’s “Cupcake Wars” only few days before they jetted off to Los Angeles in September to tape the show. They had to keep the big secret of the win until the program aired on Tuesday night.
   The show really is like viewers see it on television; the bakers have no idea of what the theme is or what kind of ingredients with which they will be using.
   ”You get there and they spring this on you,” said Ms. Bzdewka.
   ”Cupcake Wars” pits four teams of bakers against each other with a theme and judges rate the cupcakes based on originality, taste and presentation. The winner of the competition gets a $10,000 prize.
   The shop on Witherspoon Street in Princeton has been open for two and a half years and is a family enterprise with her husband and two sons pitching in. Mr. Bzdewka was the lead baker for the House of Cupcakes team on the show.
   Their challenge was to create cupcakes with a Cirque du Soleil theme and the winner got to go to the album release party in Las Vegas for the newest Cirque du Soleil show, “Viva Elvis,” and serve their cupcakes.
   Contestants had to choose between ingredients that began with “o” for the “O” show or Asian-themed ingredients for the “Ka” show. There are three timed rounds to the competition.
   But the Bzdewkas had been to Las Vegas before and had seen both of the Cirque du Soleil shows, so working with the theme was easy.
   ”We bake every day so we know how fast we can do stuff,” said Ms. Bzdewka. “We use our recipes every day and went with that. There is no recipe, you don’t know the kitchen, you just go; that’s why it’s so hard.”
   The first round the competitors had to make one cupcake with two of the themed ingredients in 40 minutes. The Bzdewkas created a two-layer cupcake with an oatmeal base of cake topped with an oatmeal cookie and frosted with black and white orange cream cheese frosting. An orange liqueur shooter was in the middle as part of the decoration.
   The judges found the cupcake to have good flavor with the theme ingredients, but one judge called the frosting too sweet and did not like the black icing. Competitors made coconut, Thai basil, oxtail cupcakes.
   For round two, the contestants had to create three more cupcakes in a two-hour window. The Bzdewkas stepped up their game and went with two savory cupcakes and one more sweet one.
   ”We had to use what the have, they have a pantry where you get the stuff from,” said Ms. Bzdewka. “We wanted to go out of the box, we wanted to go crazy with everything. We had Ron be the head baker because he is the most unlikely cupcake baker you can find.”
   Their savory flavors were a bit unusual and included a beer and sauerkraut cocoa base and beer frosting with a chocolate liqueur shooter.
   ”The beer makes it light and airy,” said Mr. Bzdewka.
   They also had a tomato soup cake, which when baked is left with the spices in the cake with an Amaretto icing and Amaretto shooter.
   The final sweet cupcake was an espresso cupcake and peanut butter frosting with a coffee tequila shooter. All the cupcakes were decorated with fondant cutouts.
   Their competitors created passion fruit pineapple cupcakes, chocolate raspberry, banana split and strawberry cupcakes. One competitor was eliminated for not finishing her cupcakes on time.
   ”The hardest part was round two. You have three cupcakes to come up with and bake and you have to make sure they are baked early enough to cool,” said Ms. Bzdewka. “You have to make sure you measure everything right and remember what you put in. It’s almost like chemistry because you have to come up with it and do it right there.”
   The husband and wife team managed their time well and had three frosted, decorated cupcakes ready on time for the judges. The competition didn’t fare so well, with frosting melting off hot cupcakes, no decorations or not finishing all three on time.
   Judges were mixed on their reviews, not liking the sauerkraut or saying come of the cupcakes were dry. They were impressed with the shooters with the coordinating liqueur, calling them “different and never before seen on the show,” and liked that you could eat and drink at the same time.
   For the third round they had to create 1,000 cupcakes and create displays. The three-part display Mr. Bzdewka came up with rotated and had lights on it. They had a half dozen assistants to help them.
   ”It’s going to bring us to a whole new level, we’re not just a downtown shop any more,” said Mr. Bzdewka at the end of the show.
   After the judges declared House of Cupcakes the winner, they packed up their cupcakes and display and were whisked off to Las Vegas for the party.
   The Bzdewka family is donating their $10,000 in prize money to St. Jude’s Children’s Research Hospital.