St. Louis Food Blogger Bake Sale Recap and an Online Bake Sale Going On Now

I came home from the St. Louis Food Blogger Bake Sale for Share Our Strength with a sugar high (from snacking all day on the best baked goods in town), a stash of baked goods that I simply couldn't consume during the sale, and a pile of money ready to be counted. 

Food Outreach Hunger Challenge

I'm spoiled when it comes to food and I know it.  Here's a breakdown of my typical week's eating:

• Breakfast for me consists of cold cereal and soy milk.  I have a pantry stocked with five different kinds of cereal that I mix and match.  I'll typically have some raisins for my breakfast dessert (every meal needs to end with something sweet!).
• I eat lunch out with my husband and toddler every single day.  We don't go to chains and rarely go to places that would be considered "family" restaurants.  Since he's been going out to eat his whole life, my son is fairly well-behaved.  If he starts to get too loud, my husband or I will take him for a walk (but, that doesn't happen too often).  One of my son's favorite foods is sushi.
• In the afternoon, I'll have a snack, some fresh fruit, a piece of a $7 bar of chocolate, or whatever the cupcake of the week happens to be (remember, too, that the cupcakes often contain free ingredients provided by companies so that I'll share their products with my readers).  
• Because my husband takes food photos for several local magazines, a few nights each week our dinner is the food that he has photographed (the chefs typically give it to him because after he's taken the photo, they can't serve it to a customer).  Other nights, my husband might cook.  He does all of the cooking and he is incredibly talented.  When we cook at home, it often costs almost as much as when we go out to eat since we shop at Whole Foods and buy expensive fish and meat and impulse buy any new and exotic ingredients we see.  But in reality, Jonathan almost never cooks because he doesn't have to.  If we don't have any free food or leftovers to eat for dinner, I may just have cereal because I'm so full from my giant lunch.

I am lucky.

This week, our family is taking the Hunger Challenge on behalf of a unique non-profit organization called Food Outreach. Located in St. Louis, Food Outreach provides nutritional meals to individuals facing HIV/AIDS or cancer who also struggle financially. It is very strenuous for these individuals to eat nutritiously because they often rely on Food Stamps, which provide just $29 a week for groceries. Today through Saturday, our family is eating on $29/person ($87 total) to spread awareness of the necessity for Food Outreach’s services (and services provided by other similar organizations throughout the country).

I know that for some of you, this may not seem like challenge - this is your life.  I'm someone who can't think of the last time I went three days without eating in a restaurant and I have gone a lifetime not paying attention to what goes in my grocery cart as long as I am happy with the ingredients.  This is going to be a major challenge for me and my family.

Because this is a cupcake blog, I have given myself one additional challenge.  If I can do so without sacrificing the nutrition of my family, I am going to try to make a small batch of simple cheap cupcakes at the end of the week. 

I will share Hunger Challenge updates throughout the week both here and on Facebook and let you know what we're eating and what I've learned. 

Join me in this challenge by visiting hungerchallengestl.org to pledge $29 or to find out how you can help.

Share Our Stength Bake Sale Tales and a Note on Technical Difficulties

Let's get the lame stuff out of the way first, and then we can move on to awesomeness.  Blogger (where this blog is hosted) has been having some technical difficulties.  Many of you were unable to enter the contest to win a reusable cupcake wrapper.  The good news is that it's now working - so go enter!  The bad news is that the early comments were removed and still haven't returned.  If you entered already and do not see your comment there, do not despair and do not re-enter.  I have all of the comments saved in my email and I will be sure that you are counted.

Now, onto the Share Our Strength Bake Sale.  The bake sale today was a HUGE success! We raised over $800, not including the amount donated by Sappington Farmers' Market (we are still waiting for an exact number from them).

While I loved the warm fuzzies from helping a worthy cause, perhaps my favorite part of the event was the opportunity to gather, schmooze, and put movement and voices to photos I'd seen of other St. Louis food bloggers.  Andrew Veety said it best when he commented, "If someone had dropped a bomb on the market at drop-off time, we would have lost a huge percentage of St. Louis food writers."  We all decided that we'd have to get together more often (I think we're going to do a potluck next).  If you are a food blogger and haven't met other food bloggers in your area, I highly encourage you to do so (even if you're not a social type, don't you want to try their food?). 

Share Our Strength Bake Sale is This Saturday!

Pineapple meringue cake, cheese danish, coconut fudge, cardamom muffins, goat milk caramels with sea salt, bourbon-vanilla bean caramels, banana split cupcakes, mandel bread, apple pie, fresh-baked bread, banana cake, peanut butter banana cupcakes with Butterfinger buttercream, brown sugar cupcakes with salted caramel Swiss meringue buttercream, chocolate avalanche and vanilla avalanche cookies, gooey butter cake cookies, brown butter brownies, spring tulip cookies, homemade pretzels, key lime pie cupcakes, peach cobbler cupcakes, wine and cheese cupcakes, and much, much more will be available at...

...the Share Our Strength Food Blogger Bake Sale this Saturday!

If you live in the St. Louis area, stop by Sappington Farmers' Market from 10am-2pm, say, "Hi!", buy some baked goods, and do your grocery shopping (Sappington will be donating a portion of the proceeds of Saturday's sales to Share Our Strength)!  Get all of the details and share the event with your friends on our Facebook event page.

If you don't live in St. Louis, you can participate in your city.  Check out the map of bake sales going on around the country. 

Call for Bakers, Donors, and Eaters - Share Our Strength Food Blogger Bake Sale on May 14

Update (4/10) - We have a time and location set.  See the Facebook event page for all of the details!

Kimberly of Rhubarb and Honey, Andrew of Andrew Mark Veety, and I are excited to be Missouri's hosts for this year's Food Blogger Bake Sale for Share Our Strength!

Here's the description of the national effort from the Food Blogger Bake Sale home page:

Organized by Gaby Dalkin of What’s Gaby Cooking, food bloggers from across the country will unite to end childhood hunger by holding bake sales in their states. Readers will have the opportunity to taste the baked goods from their favorite food blogs at each state’s bake sale location.

Funds raised through the Food Blogger Bake Sale support Share Our Strength’s efforts to end childhood hunger in America.  Nearly one in four—children in America face hunger, that’s more than 17 million kids!! Despite the good efforts of governments, private-sector institutions and everyday Americans, millions of our children still don’t have daily access to the nutritious meals they need to live active, healthy lives. More information on Share Our Strength can be found at http://strength.org/ Last year we raised over $16,000 and this year we are shooting to raise even more!!

If you live near St. Louis, we are looking for your help! 

Here's how you can participate:

1. Are you a home baker who can bake something from scratch (cakes, cookies, brownies, pies, fudge, cupcakes, anything)?  We are looking for baked goods to sell.  You don't need to be a food blogger, and your baked goods don't have to be gourmet.  If you can help by donating (even if it's just a small amount), we'd really appreciate it!   Drop me an email at stef@cupcakeproject.com if you are interested in baking for the sale, and we can talk about the details. 
2. Are you a local bakery that would like to donate a gift card to be given away at our bake sale raffle?  We'd love your help and will be happy to pimp your business in future posts, Tweets, and at the Bake Sale itself.   Drop me an email at stef@cupcakeproject.com if you are able to donate to the sale. 
3. Are you someone who likes to eat baked goods? Of course you are!  Mark May 14 on your calendars now.  I'll post more details about the location and time once we have everything locked down.

If you don't live near St. Louis, remember that this is a nationwide effort.  Check out the list of Food Blogger bake sales by state and see if you can get involved in one near you.  If there isn't one in your area, perhaps you'd like to host!

Thanks for your support!  My tummy is rumbling right now and it's only been a couple of hours since I last ate.  It's hard and saddening to picture true hunger.  I hope that we can help in some small way.

Chocolate Peanut Butter Hi-Hat Cupcakes for FilterPure - It's Time to Raise $4,000

Update 8/31/2011: This post does not include the cupcake recipe. I only provided the recipe to those who donated.  Since enough time has gone by, I've made the recipe public on my Chocolate Peanut Butter Hi-Hat Cupcake Recipe post.

These chocolate peanut butter cupcakes loaded with dark chocolate chips, topped with peanut butter frosting, then dipped in more chocolate are a sight to behold.  This is the ultimate chocolate peanut butter cupcake!  Take a look inside:

Want the recipe?  Sorry, it's not free.

Heifer International

This is the last of three posts highlighting the charities that we will vote on next week as part of Cupcake Project 4.0.  For all of the details of the project, see the original project post.

Heifer International's goal is to "empower [families] to turn lives of hunger and poverty into self-reliance and hope."

With gifts of livestock and training, we help families improve their nutrition and generate income in sustainable ways. We refer to the animals as “living loans” because in exchange for their livestock and training, families agree to give one of its animal’s offspring to another family in need. It’s called Passing on the Gift – a cornerstone of our mission that creates an ever-expanding network of hope and peace.

I wrote to each of the three selected charities and asked them what they would do with $4000. I did not hear back from Heifer International, but I was able to reach someone there via phone.  I was told that while we could use the money toward purchasing specific animals, it is best to give to the General Fund so that the money can go where it is most needed. Should we choose Heifer, we would follow her advice and give to the General Fund.

I know that a lot of you are Alton Brown fans.  Check out what he has to say about Heifer International:




Voting begins on Monday.  Be sure to read about FilterPure and Planet Water so you are familiar with all of the choices.

FilterPure

This is the second of three posts highlighting the charities that we will vote on next week as part of Cupcake Project 4.0.  For all of the details of the project, see the original project post.


I wrote to each of the three selected charities and asked them what they would do with $4000. Here is the response from FilterPure:

With the $4000 we could do so much.  We are focused on our factory in Haiti right now, which is just starting up, and we would love to purchase filters from them, all proceeds stay in Haiti and go to the Haitian factory with Haitian staff.  The filters would then be distributed to displaced people from the earthquake.  The situation right now continues to be critical as diseases like Typhoid have become epidemic in Haiti.  People continue to live in tents in situations with no access to potable water and substandard hygienic systems in place.  The filters that the Cupcake Project would donate would go to provide 133 families with water filters for their homes, thereby meeting the water needs of more than 800 people for 5 years.  Now that is what I call frosting on the cake.

My previous cupcake projects have provided about 133 people with cupcakes for one night - to think we could provide 133 families with fresh water for five years is mind-boggling! 

This feature video that CNN did on FilterPure gives you a great sense of the history of the organization and what they do.  



While FilterPure sounds like an incredible charity, don't forget that we have two others to choose from.  It's going to be so hard to pick!

Planet Water Foundation

This is the first of three posts highlighting the charities that we will vote on next week as part of Cupcake Project 4.0.  For all of the details of the project, see the original project post.

I wrote to each of the three selected charities and asked them what they would do with $4000. Here is the response from Planet Water Foundation:

Planet Water Foundation is a US based non-profit organization that focuses its work on bringing clean water to disadvantaged communities in the developing world through the installation of water purification systems and the deployment of education programs on water-health and hygiene practices.  Our projects are directed toward schools and rural villages who do not have access to clean, safe water.  Should we be selected by the Cupcake Project, we would direct the $4,000 contribution toward installing a clean water system in an elementary school in Siem Reap, Cambodia bringing clean water to over 1,000 children.  Not only will these funds directly impact the health and well being of many people, but it will also have an immediate impact on the lives of women and girls who typically walk hours a day fetching water.  By having access to clean water, women will be able to focus their time on activities to enrich their lives, and girls will be able to replace their water buckets with school books!

In a follow up email, I was told that one system costs $8,500 - installed with an education program deployed in the school.  That means that with our $4000, the water filtration system would be almost halfway funded!

Watch this video to see a time-lapse of of one of Planet Water's projects.  As you watch, keep in mind that when you see the kids drinking and washing their hands, they are experiencing clean, purified drinking water for the first time in their lives.



While PlanetWater sounds like an incredible charity, don't forget that we have two more to choose from. Posts about the other charities are coming soon.

Do You Know a Food or Water Charity That Could Use $4000? - Introducing Cupcake Project 4.0

Cupcake Projects 1, 2, and 3 were all personal challenges.  For each project, I baked 300 wedding cupcakes in my home kitchen.  The weddings were both exhausting and rewarding.  Would I do it again?  Yes, but only for the right people.  For now, I've been keeping the blog going without a project and it's a blast.  I love virtually meeting all of you and coming up with new recipes, but I've started to feel the itch to help somebody - beyond sharing life-enhancing recipes.


Introducing Cupcake Project 4.0

Cupcake Project 4.0 is not just my project.  It will include all of you - the whole Cupcake Project community. We are going to use this space to make a difference. Are you in?  Great!  Thanks!  Ready to hear what you just agreed to?