Nashville Jam Company Tops the Treats at Sugar Rush (With Pictures)

This year’s Sugar Rush event was, once again a heart-racing (hurr hurr) competition to determine the sweetest sweet in all of Nashville. Thursday night's winners were the folks behind

, who enlisted the help of

pastry chef, Ashley Jent (as well as executive chef Brandon Frohne). Their jam-enhanced treats earned them both the Sugar Rush trophy and a "golden ticket" to a national competition in Las Vegas.

Meanwhile, last year’s winner, Jessica Collins of Bound’ry, was back with an impressive display of sweets that followed themes of popular foods of past decades: a “burger” made of cookies and a brownie, a martini confection, bacon and eggs, and sushi, among others. Chef’s Market was also back with a huge selection of sweet “charcuterie,” and Burger Republic brought samples of their very popular milkshakes.

I was also happy to see Fox’s Donut Den bring in their apple fritters and doughnuts made of croissant dough, Retro Sno’s snowballs, Crumb de la Crumb’s cakes, Nothing Bundt Cakes, Goo Goo Clusters, Bang Candy Company specialty marshmallows, Mountain Jim’s tea cakes, Nashville Toffee Company, The Chef & I, and Gretchen’s Gluten-Free Goodies. My favorite sweet stop of the night, though was Sweet Southern Spirit Cake and Candy Company. Formerly French Confection Cakes, Sweet Southern Spirit specializes in “tipsy cakes,” cakes made with spirits such as Jack Daniel’s whiskey. I’d gotten a tip as soon as I walked in to make a bee line to their whoopie pies, and I was not disappointed. My favorite was a chocolate version with frosting that contained a hint of whiskey, but they also had apple pie and cherry moonshine whoopie pies and salted caramel fudge, as well as petit fours made with Bailey’s and Lynchburg Lemonade. They’re based right outside Lynchburg, but make deliveries to Nashville five days a week (so be sure to check them out).

The majority of Sugar Rush votes were cast for items made by Nashville Jam Company and chefs Jent and Frohne, who whipped up a chocolate truffle filled with peach habanero jam as well as a ginger snap cookie topped with a bruleed Tennessee white peach, and a peach brandy jam sorbet. Judging by the long lines that continued throughout the evening, the honor was well-deserved.

Nashville Jam Company’s Sugar Rush win means that they received a “golden ticket” to the World Food Championships in Las Vegas. Billed as “the ultimate food fight,” the World Food Championships competition takes place in November and will have more than 500 entrants vying for titles in nine different categories.

Best of luck to Nashville Jam and their team! In the meantime, Nashville Jam Company products are available on dessert and breakfast menus all around town as well as a number of retail outlets.

See more pictures from Sugar Rush after the jump.