Shore Regional Hosts Cupcake Wars

By Christopher Sheldon

The home economics classroom at Shore Regional High School was transformed into a culinary cupcake competition arena on Wednesday morning.

The school hosted Cupcake Wars for the first time and it pitted five teams of students against one another as they each baked two types of cupcakes that were judged by chefs from Cake Bake and Roll in Long Branch and Sugarush in Red Bank. Shore Regional social studies teacher Tamer Shalaby also judged. 

The winning team was comprised of seniors Alex Becker, 17, of Oceanport, James Murphy, 17, of Oceanport and Kurt Hendricksen, 18, of Monmouth Beach. They impressed the judges with their churro and s'more cupcakes.

"It feels very good," Hendricksen said. "We put our hearts and souls into these cupcakes."

They were given a $25 gift certificate to Cake Bake & Roll in Long Branch. The second and third place teams won a $10 gift certificate to Turning Point and a $5 gift certificate to Red Mango in Long Branch, respectively. 

Students from teacher Alice Dean-Esposito's Foods 1 and Independent Living class were applauded by the judges for making unique and delicious cupcakes. Some of their creations included cookies and cream cupcakes, peppermint mocha cupcakes and cherry almond cupcakes.

Esposito said she was proud of her students.

"Competitions like this help students get excited about cooking," she said. "They really worked hard at this and picked challenging recipes."