An upcoming peek at baking for charity

Alexandra Johnson is in honours political science at Concordia University and last week, the 21-year-old did not complete a 12-page paper.

Her job at the Montreal Children’s Hospital was not the reason behind her incompletion of an essay, nor was it her volunteer work or her online blog.

Johnson was testing cupcake flavours, determined to find one good enough to make the cut and be her winning concoction.

Johnson is taking part in the second annual Cupcake Camp Montreal, afundraiser taking place this Sunday.Amateurs, children and professional bakers are invited to donate their cupcakes to the event, with all the profits going towards two charities, Kids Help Phone and La Tablée desChefs.

“I still don’t know how I’m managing to participate in this charity event right in the crunch of finals and projects,” said Johnson. “But there was just something about baking cupcakes for the benefit of kids that I couldn’t say no to.”

After hearing about the event from her best friend, Johnson decided to officially sponsor the event by baking over 200 cupcakes.

Now just days before the fundraiser, Cupcake Camp Montreal has received close to 19,000 cupcake donations.

The bakers are split into three groups: kids, amateurs and professionals. Each one could enter the best taste and best design contest within their group.

There are also contests for the audience’s favourite, the best Montreal themed, most yummy, and last, but not least, the famous category: failcake, where the most horrible cupcake wins.

Winners have the chance to win from a variety of prizes including jewelry, a $400 Nespresso coffee machine, tickets to shows and much more.

Johnson, who has been vigorously baking all week and sacrificing school work in the name of delicious charity, is working on a very seasonal flavour: caramel, apple and macaron cupcake.

“These little baked goods will be made up of a moist apple cake with a little bit of soft caramel filling, topped with caramel butter cream and a salted caramel macaron shell.”

While it is no easy feat to create a recipe, Johnson is seeing first hand that she may have bitten off a little more than she can chew.

“Let’s just say making caramel is tricky and it burns easily,” she said.

Johnson has until Saturday to perfect her icing and filling but she promised that she is not going to let unco-operative caramel, macaron shell, frosting, that 12-page paper and a project due this Friday get in her way of helping children.

“Baking 200 cupcakes is little if nothing when it comes to helping kids,” said Johnson, who hopes that children will follow in her footsteps and attend the fundraiser on Sunday.

Be sure to check out this week’s Life Section for coverage of the event as well as Johnson’s experience and her very special cupcake recipe.

Cupcake Camp Montreal will be held this Sunday at Fairmont Queen Elizabeth on 900 Rene-Levesque Blvd. W. near McGill and Bonaventure metros.

The event which is open to the public starts at 1 p.m. and runs until 5 p.m.

Entry scores you three cupcakes and a coffee for$10.

For more information visit www.cupcakecampmtl.org.

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