Cupcakes are all the rage but let’s be honest, some flavor combinations are far too ambitious, even for my taste.  Here are the best and worst cupcakes from Cupcake Camp 2012.  My opinion is honest and is not meant to hurt any baker’s feelings… Here we go!

Best

Caramel Eileen from Trailercakes is a salted caramel delight.  Triple caramel flavor with caramel cake, a layer of caramel goodness topped with a salted caramel buttercream and pretzel.  Sweet, salty, fantastic!

Peanut Butter Banana and Maple Bacon Cupcakes from Cuptastic. (pictured above)  Both of these cakes were very, very moist and were packed with flavor.  The bacon must be of good quality because it was flavorful and not fatty.  I love both of these a lot.

Red Velvet Cheesecake Cupcake from Baby Cakes was divine!  I love cheesecake and I particularly love when cheesecake is marbled in a cupcake.  I need these by the dozen, every week.

French Toast Bacon Breakfast Cupcake from bakers Cheryl Dumas & Kim & Cory Wickware is a french toast cupcake with maple buttercream, fresh-cut bacon strips and gummy egg.  The cake tastes just like yummy french toast with maple syrup and crispy bacon.  I loved it!

Worst

I have enjoyed cakes by The Cake Diva in the past but the star cupcake of her display was very disappointing.  Her butter cupcakes topped with chocolate buttercream, french fries and what appears to have been rock salt was too salty.  The cake was very moist, but it was salty.  A salty cake combined with the salty fries and the rock salt sprinkled on top, it was too much salty and not enough sweet.  I would actually love to see her rework this cupcake.  It has potential!

The two cupcakes I had the most hope for featured jalapeno.  I was devastated when they were both dry and weak in flavor.

Texas Bandit Cupcake from Stud Muffins resulted in a weak flavor, spice-like chocolate cake that was very dry with a cherry buttercream, fondant cut out of Texas and a sugared jalapeno.  I did not like the cake or frosting but the sugared jalapeno was great!

Strawberry Jalapeno Cupcake from Sweet Art Bakery baked bits of jalapeno into their strawberry cake.  The cake was topped with buttercream and a drained pickled jalapeno.  This cake, too, was dry.  Despite the jalapeno bits in the cake, I did not pickup up much jalapeno flavor at all.  I would never have this cake again.  It just did not come together well and I don’t actually like the idea of strawberry and jalapeno together.