Have you ever felt the urge to sit and eat cupcakes with others who just want to sit and eat cupcakes?

A strange pastime some might say but hundreds of people with similar cupcake urges descended on South Belfast at the weekend for Europe’s first ever Cupcake Camp.

We’ve seen Fat Camp and Boot Camp but who could ever have imagined a camp where you are obliged to sit around and cook and/or munch on scores of moist and delicious cupcakes topped with the most outrageous candy-themed icing swirls. 

Believe it or not, that’s exactly the kind of event that set up camp at the Blick Shared Studios on the Malone Road on Saturday.

Unfortunately, visitor tickets for the wondrous cupcake camp were sold out within days of going on sale so the only way of getting next or near the Holy Grail was by baking some cupcakes of your own.

Okay, so it wasn’t all about randomly stuffing your face with little pieces of culinary heaven, there actually was a serious point to CupcakeCamp NI.

Organisers thought up three competitions to challenge the good and the bad of the global cupcake industry and entries were judged on the ‘Best Overall’, ‘Best Decorated’ and the best ‘Summer Themed’.

In all three sections, the judges looked at taste, aesthetics, thought process, use of seasonal ingredients and special dietary requirement allowances but the only instructions were “Indulge us! Excite our senses! Make it easy on the eyes!”

I did briefly, and I mean very briefly, consider entering. I mean, how hard could it be? Cupcakes are just glorified fairy cakes, aren’t they? What’s difficult about a bit of icing, a few eggs and a bag of flour?

Thankfully, I caught up with Cupcake Camp NI’s first demonstrator and South Belfast cupcake queen, Sarah Landstreet just in time to save myself from cupcake humiliation.

The sugar queen herself is a mechanical engineer from Ontario, Canada who has somehow found herself living in Stranmillis Wharf and baking cupcakes 24/7. Such is her love of baking, she packed up her office career last year in London last year and started her Marshmallow Grove cupcake business on the banks of the Lagan.

I should have known these were no ordinary cupcakes as soon as I spotted the blowtorch in among the whisks and mixing bowls in Sarah’s kitchen.

There were cupcake templates coming out of every nook and cranny and, just as I expected, the place smelt divine.

‘Peaches and Cream’, ‘Chocolate and Guinness’, ‘Green Tea’ and ‘Chilli Chocolate’ were just some of the cupcake flavours baking in the busy oven and all around me there were stacks of beautifully-decorated, glittery cupcakes.

For Sarah, the bottom line is intense, lush flavours and one bite is testament to the amazing taste experience her cupcake’s have become famous for.

“The Cupcake Camp is all about professional and amateur bakers and tasters coming together to have a laugh and enjoy the delicacy that is cupcakes,” Sarah told me from among the eggs and flour.

“I come from Canada where cupcakes are a big thing and when I was in London they were a big hit so I thought I’d come to Belfast and make them famous here.

“Since I arrived at Christmas there has been a cupcake explosion but that has made me more determined to develop a unique and lush taste experience and so far, so good.

“I spent months locked away practicing my recipes and developing intense flavours  and now I have my base one and I know exactly its limitations and how they can be adapted and modified.”

Sarah’s biggest challenge to date was a three-foot cupcake for the Belfast Visitor and Convention Bureau but her clientele list is constantly growing as cupcake mania grips South Belfast.

She hosted her first ever demo day last month - a big hit among locals - and is keen to keep her teaching avenue open for the future. But it’s not all icing sugar and edible glitter for Sarah who goes through dozens of eggs, tens of bags of flour and up to 30 kilos of icing sugar every single week but she loves every taste-tingling minute of it.

So if you have a spare hour, some butter, a few eggs, baking powder, flour, sugar, vanilla, salt and a great imagination, get practicing for the next Cupcake Camp near you.