Girl Scouts on Cupcake Wars

Last Sunday night, Food Network aired an episode of Cupcake Wars with the theme of the Girl Scout's 100th anniversary celebration. If you haven't seen the show before here's the premise in a nutshell (I guess I should say in a cupcake wrapper). Four cupcake makers compete to have their cupcake display at a big event. There are three rounds and one cupcake maker is eliminated after each round. The producers usually prescribe some ingredients that must be used and the theme for decoration.

We love the show anyway, so we were excited to see this episode. We liked it. It was fun. I've read some criticism of it, but overall the GS volunteer community seems to have liked it also. More thoughts from us:

Violet and I were really glad to see that the guest judge was a Girl Scout, and not some muckied-muck from Council or worse Corporate in New York. The girl was an Ambassador, likely a graduating senior. She was poised and well spoken. She was obviously hand picked by her Council, and she did a great job. Very inspiring to young girls and a great role model. I bet she does well in life.

One cupcake maker uses beer in all her cupcakes at her bakery. I think it was unfortunate that the producers had her on this particular episode. The Girl Scouts are "honest and fair" and frankly it wasn't fair of the show to book her for that week. Have her on for a sporting event, not an event for girls. She opted to stick with beer in her cupcakes and was (rightly) eliminated in the first round. Sure she could have changed her approach, but sticking to her way of baking is a quality that Girl Scouts (should) admire. But you can't serve young girls cupcakes that were made with beer, whether all the alcohol cooks off or not. It isn't right. It doesn't promote the organization's values. Shame on Food Network for booking her that episode.

In the first round the cupcake makers were supposed to copy a Girl Scout cookie in their cupcake. Why cupcake makers chose to add other flavors to "enhance" the cookie flavor is beyond me. While a peach lemonade cupcake sounds really delicious to me, it isn't the flavor of the cookie. (Man, a peach lemonade cupcake sounds really, really good. I could snarf a few of those down right now.) And a few of the winning flavors really didn't seem right for girls. I can't imagine serving lemon basil cupcakes to my Juliettes. Maybe a peach lemonade one though. But not claiming it is a Girl Scout cookie flavor.