Sugar Rush {Event}

Last Thursday night, I attended Sugar Rush, a fundraising event to benefit the NC Dance Theater.

The event was a bake-off between 15+ local bakeries and dessert specialists in Charlotte.  Tickets were $25 and with the purchase we got to sample all of the desserts and choose a winner.  Yes, all of them.  Holy sugar coma, Batman.

Here’s a brief glimpse of everything I tried.

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Kentucky Bourbon Cupcakes and Red Velvet Cupcakes

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Dark and Milk Chocolate Caramels with Himalayan Sea Salt

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Salted Caramel Macarons

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Dark chocolate cups with milk chocolate centers and white chocolate ribbon curls

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Passion fruit cream filled cones with pistachio crust — some had hand-piped chocolate garnish and some had pistachio filled caramel drops

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I honestly don’t remember what this was called, but I do remember that it came from the Secret Chocolatier. It was like a milk chocolate mousse topped with almond slivers and a crumbly chocolate crust.  Yum.

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These cute little vanilla cupcakes with a salty pretzel topping are from Dottie’s Cupcakery out of Waxhaw.  I somehow missed taking a photo of her key lime cake balls, which was a close second to my favorite sweet of the night.

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I wasn’t a huge fan of this tiramisu because of the overwhelming taste of Kahlua, but I thought the presentation was very creative and unique.  The spoons are edible!

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These chocolate raspberry bars from Sweet Lorraine’s were very decadent.

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However, my favorite thing from SL’s is their chocolate chip cookie brownies (pictured right).  But the trick is to getting them when they’re straight from the oven.  They need a “hot and now” sign, I tell ya.

That’s Krispy Kreme reference, yankees. 😉

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There were quite a few other tastes here and there and thank goodness I had a partner in crime (my friend Jes, who suggested we attend the event) who didn’t mind splitting a lot of the treats else, I would have needed to be rolled out of there in a wheel barrow.

But now, let’s get to my favorite of the night…

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Novel Sweets‘ Dante’s Inferno Cupcake!

Sweet Kiersten of Novel Sweets dropped off some of her vegan cupcakes to me a few months ago and just last week I saw her mention this particular cupcake flavor (they change regularly) on her Facebook page and thought, “Wow, that sounds amazing.”  I have a thing for spicy chocolate. So I was super excited to see her and this particular cupcake at the Sugar Rush event.

I loved that the spice was very subtle and that the cherry was also pretty subtle.  I’m kind of on the fence when it comes to cherry and chocolate, but I really loved this flavor combination.

Choosing my top pick was not easy. But the fact that I knew I loved this cupcake the most out of all the other sweet options is saying a lot since it was one of the last things I tried.  I was about 2 grams of sugar away from being completely over all of it.

If sweets are you thing, definitely check out this event next March.  Due to the number of people there, I have a feeling this is going to become a regular event for the NC Dance Theater.

And due to the 100:1 ratio of girls to guys (I’m estimating), this event seems like a wonderful place to meet a girl. Just sayin’. Maybe I’ll take all my single guy friends next year. 🙂