Unless you’ve been living under a thick blanket of chocolate fondant, you know that the Twin Cities have been in the throes of cupcake madness for the past many years, with cupcake specialist bakeries (including Cupcake, Sweets Bakeshop, and Sweet Retreat), a cupcake truck, and now possibly a cupcake world grand champion! (That is, if Kevin VanDeraa, baker and owner of Cupcake, wins the current season of Cupcake Wars on June 10, as the public screening at New Century Theatre kind of makes one think he might… pick up tickets at Cupcake on University.)

But what of the next generation of cupcake artists? Who are they? Who’s training them? Are they any good? All this will be answered this Sunday night at the fourth annual Partnership Resources, Inc.’s Taste of Art fundraiser.

Teams from the local cooking schools, including St. Paul College, will make and decorate cupcakes, and guests and judges, including yours truly, will then decide if they’ve got what it takes to be Minnesota’s next cupcake stars. The winning team gets four $500 scholarships!

Tickets are $75, and in addition to eating your fill of cupcakes, you’ll also get a nice Italian dinner (including ‘zuppa di pesce Sorrento,’ fish stew with scallops and cod as they make it in Sorrento,) a chance to participate in the silent auction, and above all the opportunity to make a contribution to the worthy efforts of Partnership Resources, Inc. PRI works to create partnerships between adults with disabilities and their communities, giving work and social opportunities to developmentally disabled people who otherwise would have none. You might have noticed developmentally disabled people working throughout the world of food in Minnesota, at places including Bull Run Roasting, Cub Foods, Linden Hills Co-op, and the Valley Natural Foods Co-op, it’s through PRI that these connections happen. So let’s support them—and eat our cake too.