UPDATE:
Congratulations to Hokulani Bake Shop for winning! This was the 12th episode of season four for Food Network’s “Cupcake Wars.” The final two teams had to make 1,000 cupcakes each for this year’s Scream Fest; our Hawaii team took the cake and won the competition overall!
Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “War is a poor chisel to carve out tomorrow.” But what he really meant was that it’s a mixing spoon to whip up the next fluffiest cupcake. Every week, cupcake bakers go to war on Food Network’s Cupcake Wars, and later today, we’ll see a Hawaii bakery fight to the end…of the oven timer.Try a Hokulani sweet treat in Honolulu, Waikiki or at Eat the Street in their cute food truck.
Hokulani Bake Shop, located on Oahu, is known for their buttery made-from-scratch cupcakes. From the classic and ever-popular red velvet cupcake to the locally-inspired strawberry guava cupcake, Hokulani Bake Shop extends a savory reach to every kind of taste bud. I like to get the carrot spice with cream cheese, snickerdoodle with cinnamon cream cheese and whenever it’s in season, the Waialua fudge filled vanilla cake with orange cream cheese. Yes, all those flavors in a single cupcake; it should almost be one long hyphenated surname in honor of the multi-ingredient cupcake union.(Top) A cute cupcake and cookie display. (Bottom) The mouthful-of-a-name cupcake I was talking about!
General manager Angela Chandler and her assistant chef Nicole Ferriman sent in an audition video that, according to them, shows their true goofy selves; singing an 80s one-hit wonder, bringing some Cali swag into the kitchen and attempting the “Dougie” are all in a day’s work at the shop. They’ll do some baking intermittently; actually, they do a lot of baking. Angela said they make 1,000 cupcakes every two hours, which is the exact requirement and time limit for the remaining two bakers in the final round of the show.
Whether it was their impressive dance moves or Angela’s big baking “guns” as a result of lifting and mixing, the Food Network chose the pair to be a part of the hit TV show. Cupcake Wars gets four bakers to compete in four rounds, with an elimination at the end of each round. The last two bakers take on the challenge of making 1,000 cupcakes and putting them on display in two hours.
VIDEO: Check out their adorably silly audition video sent to Food Network.
Angela and Nicole aren’t allowed to reveal how they did, just yet. They did say they’d use the $10,000 prize to pay off culinary school loans and to go shopping. Angela, who grew up in Texas, has lived in Hawaii for more than a year after her husband had been stationed here in the military. Nicole is from Waianae and made sure to say in the audition video that they don’t use any fake ingredients, “or anything that taste like sunblock.” They use “real coconuts that come off a tree.”
Together, they leave us with this go-get-em mantra: “We come from a small bakery on a small island from a small state, but don’t underestimate us because we got skills.”
HOKULANI BAKE SHOP • Watch them today at 3pm on Food Network HD Chan. 1321 or at 6pm on Oceanic Digital Chan. 321
Locations:
Restaurant Row • 500 Ala Moana Blvd., #4B Honolulu, HI 96813 • Opens Mon-Fri 9am-6pm, Sat 10am-5pm • 808-587-7098
Pioneer Plaza • 900 Fort St. Mall, #102, Honolulu, HI 96813 • Opens Mon-Fri 9am-4pm • 808-537-2253
Hyatt Regency Waikiki • 2424 Kalakaua Ave., Honolulu, HI 96815 • Opens daily 9am-11pm • 808-923-2253
Photo Credit: Hokulani Bakery
