How Can I Make a Cupcake Competition Fundraiser More Fun and Profitable?

[ChefNelson]

I'm hoping you guys can offer some suggestions/advice on an upcoming fundraiser I'm helping plan.

The fundraiser is for my local Women in Aviation group. We're trying to fund a $500 scholarship (and hopefully earn even more money to begin funding next year's scholarship). The idea is to have some sort of cupcake competition (I don't know if they have Iron Cupcake competitions everywhere, but that's sort of the model we're after). I chimed in and said I could set up a PC fundraiser component to help the group as well. I plan to set everyone in the group up with a catalog, info, and order forms and then will have a table set up to take orders and answer questions at the actual event. I'm also going to use an idea I found on here about doing a pool for products and sell tickets for $5-$10, split the total money with the group and use the other half to buy products the drawing winner chooses. (Should be an easy way to make $100-$200 for the group, and then I'll submit the order as part of the fundraiser to boost the total sales there as well.)

Any other ideas on how to make the cupcake competition fun? Has anyone done anything even remotely like this? We're trying to make it fun and profitable ... well, and tasty! I'm planning to modify the Mojito Torte recipe for mini cupcakes. Can't wait!

 

[scottcooks]

Do a white box cake mix in the mini muffin pan. Let people top their mini cupcakes at your station.Either yourself, or go to a good bakery and get 1 dozen cupcakes. Do a cupcake walk where everyone pays $5 to begin on a number. Make some tiles out of paper with numbers 1-10 on them, one foot step apart. Tape them well, on the floor (people will walk on these!). All the donations go to the charity. One person (two if you want to be generous) wins the next cupcake. If you have a really solid crowd, make it $10 a spot to participate. Or say "Donation of $5 or more to our charity". Once each of the 10 spots are filled, then begin some music. When the music stops, all people stop on a specific number. [9-13 year olds get impatient with others; I tell them to pass them on the outside and just go around.] Then draw a number out of a hat/bag and that number wins the cupcake. This will make $50 for each game, that times a dozen cupcakes is $600! All money donated goes to charity.

 

[JennyJennJen]

If you make cupcakes the white chocolate one from the new Chocolate cookbook looks soooo good. I am making them tomorrow!

I made these and everyone LOVED LOVED LOVED them...They looked and tasted like they came from an awesome professional bakery...and believe me, I normally do not make desserts look pretty.

 

[pampered1224]

Scott that is an awesome idea! I had forgotten about cake walks. My mom belonged to the Civic League in our community when I was very young and they were very popular and always very successful for fund raising. Also, if making cupcakes yourself, the new Caramel Apple ones in the, forgot the title, Round-Up Cookbook from the TLC people is really good! I took our caramel instead of making theirs and simply slowly heated it on the stove to reduce it some so it would be thicker. YUMMY! And there is nothing wrong with raising with $600 using only a dozen cupcakes! You would still be way ahead if you wanted to make it 2 cupcakes. I mean seriously! You could have access to dozens of cupcakes people could "Walk" for. Lets see, you could do two minutes of music, one walk say every 10 minutes. That is 6 walks per hour. In couple of hours you could easily have that $600.

 

[Wildfire]

Hi there,First of all, I think it's great that you're using your Pampered Chef business to help support such a wonderful cause! As a fellow consultant, I can offer some suggestions for your upcoming fundraiser.One idea is to offer a "bake-off" type competition, where participants can enter their best cupcake recipe and have a panel of judges (or even just members of the group) taste and vote on their favorites. This can be a fun and interactive way to involve the attendees and also raise more money for the scholarship.Another idea is to offer a raffle for a Pampered Chef product as a prize. You can either have attendees purchase raffle tickets beforehand or at the event, with all proceeds going towards the scholarship fund.You could also offer a "make and take" station where attendees can decorate their own mini cupcakes using Pampered Chef tools and products. This can be a fun and interactive activity that also showcases the versatility of Pampered Chef products.Overall, I think your idea to use the Mojito Torte recipe for mini cupcakes is a great choice and will definitely be a hit. Good luck with your fundraiser and I hope it is a huge success! Let me know if you need any further assistance with the Pampered Chef portion of the event. Best of luck!