Local Pastry Chefs Compete in Cupcake Wars

A magnificent display of 1,000 cupcakes with flavors like chocolate basil with strawberry buttercream and almond with earl grey buttercream wasn’t enough to crown Meghan Coleman and Gwen Rogers as winners of Food Network’s Cupcake Wars.

But these local pastry chefs from Crema Café walked away with something more valuable than the $10,000 winning prize: exposure to their baking panache.

“We have customers calling from all over the country asking if we ship cupcakes,” co-owner Marley Brush said. “Our cupcake sales have quadrupled since the show aired.”

Coleman and Rogers, who joined Crema Café a year ago, said they decided to apply to be on Cupcake Wars after seeing some contestants act unprofessionally on the show, “like wearing your hair down," Coleman said.

"You never do that in the kitchen,” she added.

Each week, Cupcake Wars features four teams of two bakers who compete in three elimination challenges until one is announced a winner.

Coleman said that being on the show was quite a challenge. Not only were the teams put under pressure while baking cupcakes in a fast-paced, timed environment, but they also had the production crew follow them everywhere as they ran around in a busy kitchen.

Although Coleman said it was disappointing to come in second place, she said it was a great learning experience because they received lots of feedback from the judges.

Crema Café will serve all four cupcakes featured on the show—from pistachio chiffon with rosewater buttercream and cardamom phyllo nests to peach with sweet corn and thyme buttercream—through the end of August.

—Staff writer Jane Seo can be reached at janeseo@college.harvard.edu.