Thursday, March 31, 2011

Reds Win!

In the words of Mr. Marty Brennaman, "and this one belongs to the Reds!".


Don't worry I won't post for every Reds victory, but it is Opening Day and we haven't won an Opening Day in 3 years.  Also, when your catcher hits a 3 run home run to win it...well, that's something to write about!

Opening Day!

Friends, 

Welcome to Batter Up!  Today is not only opening day for my blog, but it is also Opening Day for the Cincinnati Reds!!  As most of you know I absolutely love cupcakes and baseball so I figure what better day to kick off my cupcake blog than Opening Day.  While I love baseball I am in no way qualified to write about it, but cupcakes are an entirely different story.  The idea came to me just the other week while I was visiting a cupcake shop in Oklahoma.  I travel quite a bit, and on all of my trips I try to seek out a local cupcakery to check out their goods.  While eating the delicious cake I thought that it would be a great idea to share my findings with the world (or the 5 of you that will follow my blog).  So with some help from my dear friend David Dailey of The Dailey Dish, Batter Up was born!  Here you will find my opinions on different cupcakes throughout the country, and anything else that I feel like writing about.  I also love to bake cupcakes so I'll be sure to keep you posted on different recipes and how they turn out.  

Statistics play an important role in baseball and the evaluation of players.  There are 3 traditional statistics an analyst will look at to determine a player's skill level: batting average (however, on base percentage has become a more popular stat in recent years), RBIs, and Home Runs.  If a player leads the league in these 3 stats, they are referred to as a "Triple Crown" winner.  To be awarded "Triple Crown" winner as a pitcher the player must lead the league in Wins, ERA, and Strikeouts.  There are also key variables when evaluating a cupcake.  For the purpose of this blog I will rate the cakes in 5 categories: the cake itself, the icing, presentation, creativity, and my overall happiness after indulging.  While these variables are much more subjective than baseball stats you will just have to trust my opinion.  So I begin my search to find the Triple Crown winner of the cupcake world or I guess in this case it would be Quintuple Crown winner?  Let's just say the award name is a work in progress.

I currently live in Chicago, but was born and raised in Cincinnati, OH.  That is why my very first write up will come straight from the Queen City.  While home last week I stopped at Abby Girl Cupcakes http://www.abbygirlsweets.com/ on 5th street downtown.  I decided to go with the classic Red Velvet cupcake to stick with my Reds Opening Day theme. Well, I hope the Reds have a better season than this cupcake!  





1) cake - this was ok.  The cake was moist yet still fluffy which is always a plus.  2) icing - not great.  Traditionally red velvet cupcakes have a thick cream cheese icing.  Not this guy.  It wasn't thick at all - more of a whipped icing which is not my favorite (especially on a red velvet) 3) presentation - again, not great. They basically crumbled up some of the cake and sprinkled it on top.  If you think it is necessary to have an additional topping, add sprinkles, not more cake!  Also, the plastic container made the cupcake look so cheap 4) creativity - tough to judge here because I went with a traditional flavor.  Maybe their intentions were to be creative with the crumbled cake topping??? 5) overall happiness - if you haven’t guessed by now I was not thrilled with what Cincinnati had to offer.  All and all this cake is far from being a Quintuple Crown Winner.  Well, my first stop was a disappointment but I have a feeling cupcakes will improve as the season continues!

XOXO