Jennifer Ferguson, Natalie Ferguson, and Joe Polackwich [Photo: Denise Ritchie]

There was an air of sweet success last Sunday afternoon at the Heritage Center, where local bakers had whipped up their favorite cupcake recipes to compete in the 10th annual Jeane Graves Charity Cupcake Challenge and raise money for the Michael J. Fox Foundation.

Sisters Janie Graves Hoover, Jeane Graves Bartlett and Judy Graves organized the event in honor of their mother, who passed away from Parkinson’s disease a decade ago.

“This event is very personal to us,” explained Hoover. “When she passed we vowed to make a commitment to the Michael J. Fox Foundation to raise money for research for finding a cure for the debilitating disease through a series of small fundraisers. The cupcake challenge was the most popular, so we decided to continue it on a grander scale.”

“Our mother was always reinventing herself and she actually went to culinary school to become a chef at age 60,” added Bartlett. “And she loved contests and was always encouraging us to enter contests as children. So, we combined two of her passions into one event and came up with the cupcake challenge. Last year we opened it up to junior bakers and we love seeing the young people competing while giving to charity.”

Attendees roamed the room to sample the tasty treats before voting on who they thought should receive the People’s Choice Award.

“I think I ate 10 of them,” said Elizabeth Bowler with a laugh. “They are all so good and so different than store bought.”

Meanwhile, a panel of judges – Wilson Holloway, Chef Michael Glatz and Traci Simonton – had the difficult job of determining which cupcakes would receive their awards, assessing taste and decorations in submissions by Home, Professional and Junior Baker categories.

In the end it was Heather Stapleton, executive director of Vero Heritage Inc., which operates the Heritage Center and the adjacent Indian River Citrus Museum, who won the judges over with her dark chocolate cupcake with a calamondin butter cream frosting and candied calamondin topper. Stapleton earned the highest honors as Best Overall Home Baker and Best Overall.

“I grow the calamondins, which is hybrid of kumquat and tangerine, in pots right outside the door of the museum,” said Stapleton. “It’s definitely a Florida-inspired and -themed cupcake.”