Competitions

Julie’s Bakeshop, the Philippines’ largest neighborhood bakeshop chain, is making waves in local television with Julie’s Chief Baker Student Edition—a reality TV show featuring Cebuano student bakers on their journey to be the first Julie’s Chief Baker champions. The 13 competing schools fighting for the first Julie’s Chief Baker title are: ACT, BC, CTU-Danao, CTU-Camotes, CEC, CIT-U, CMIC, ISHRM, MCC, SCC, UCLM, UC METC SEACAST, and USPF.

 For the 8^th week of the Julie’s Chief Baker Student Edition, the schools will have to face an interesting twist to this competition. The student bakers were asked to come up with two different cupcake flavors and sell it to the public afterwards within one hour. Proceeds of the sale will go to Julie & Dieg Foundation Inc. This challenge’s board of judges are Resident Judge Chef Sean McSavaney, Julie’s Franchise Corporation’s General Manager Art Zamora and Businessman Jose Mari Lopez.

Here’s what the judges thought of the student bakers’ products:

 Benedicto College was up first in the judging room with their Selecta Sweet Corn Cupcake and Selecta Mango a la Coco Cupcake. They chose to use partner product Selecta vanilla ice cream over regular cream for both recipes. The judges thought the Mango a la Coco lacked both Mango and Coconut flavor but the cake itself was good. Chef Sean thought the sweet corn cupcake was dense and heavy and might have been under baked.

UCLM’s Ultimate Choco Cupcake tugged at the judges’ heartstrings! Art Zamora and Jose Mari Lopez confessed to being big chocolate lovers! Their Sweetheart Cupcake had an outstanding crumb according to resident judge Chef Sean. Both cakes were simple yet elegant and well done.

Mandaue City College used locally grown ingredients in both their recipes. Their Langka Cupcake had really good flavor.  Lopez commented that the frosting could be improved to make it more attractive but MCC was quick to defend that they chose to keep it simple because no artificial flavors or colorings were added, just all-natural langka all the way from crumb to frosting!  Their Cacao de Tablea took a back seat to the Langka Cupcake but Zamora liked the crunchy texture of the tablea bits in the cake.

USPF brought 2 very attractive cupcakes to the judging table. Their Irish Cupcake had peanut butter and Irish cream and their Mock Velvet Cupcake was a cheaper-to-produce version of the regular red velvet cake.  The judges had high praises for presentation but thought taste could be improved especially on the mock velvet which they thought had too much grenadine syrup.

ISHRM’s Savory Surprise and Pretty Peppermint Cupcakes were next on the judges table. The team requested the judges to taste the Savory Cupcake first. Chef Sean enjoyed the crumb and thought that the bacon bits was a nice touch but not necessary since the cake was already very flavorful, but appreciated it nonetheless.  All 3 judges enjoyed the chocolate leaf icing on top of the Pretty Peppermint Cupcake; in terms of cake, they found the baking outstanding but the overall taste of peppermint was a tad overpowering.

CTU-San Francisco Camotes brought in their Ube Royale and Mocha Crumble.  All judges found the Ube Royale very moist, and both texture and frosting very good. Zamora and Lopez were both quick to note that adding a little more ube could have wowed them even more!  Chef Sean commended both cakes in terms of crumb and frosting, but he wasn’t a fan of the choice of the color blue for frosting on the Mocha Crumble Cupcake.

The teams spent the first 3-4 hours baking in ISCAHM and were then transported to Plaza Sugbo–the selling area afterwards. The schools were able to raise over Php 13,000 within one hour. With all these on the table, it gets harder to choose which recipe stands out and which one just doesn’t make the cut.

Tune in for the previous episodes you missed on www.youtube.com/iwantjulies. Julie’s Chief Baker is co-presented by Selecta and Coca Cola. Also brought to you by General Milling Corporation, Globe First Class Flour by Universal Robina Corporation, Gas Petronas, Zest-O Corporation, Magnolia, Inc., Vesmach, Sunstar, Cebu Daily News, The Freeman and Nature’s Spring.