National Cup Cake Week

And that's not all: this year will also see the launch of our first consumer competition, which will run alongside the professional competition. Don't worry, though, the categories will be judged separately, and it means we will be awarding two crowns on the day - the National Cupcake Champion - Professional, and the National Cupcake Champion - Home Baking.

The categories have also been given a bit of a spring clean and we have streamlined it down to four categories: Classic Cupcake of the Year, Themed Cupcake of the Year, Best Cupcake of the Year Made with Alcohol, and Free-from Cupcake of the Year.

We will pick a winner in each category, then all the category winners will go forwards to be judged in the overall final, where we will find the 2013 National Cupcake Champions.

Entries are online only - just follow the link to the entry forms below.

The National Cupcake Championships is an annual competition that forms part of our National Cupcake Week (16-22 September 2013).

>> Find out more about the competition and the categories

Cupcake sales have continued to rise significantly, according to the latest grocery retail data, compiled exclusively for British Baker, organisers of National Cupcake Week.

Data from Kantar Worldpanel, which reflects all cupcakes bought and eaten at home, has revealed that spend on cupcakes has increased by 7.5% year-on-year, to £30.9m for the 52 weeks to 17 February 2013. Volume sales have also increased 3.7% over the same period to £30.3m.

Additional figures from Symphony IRI (which covers grocery retailers only, but not in-store bakeries and discounters) shows that value sales in that sector have increased from £22.3m to £25m, for the 52 weeks to 23 February 2013, a rise of 12%. Its annual data also shows that, since February 2009, sales of cupcakes have rocketed a whopping 34%.

Georgi Gyton, associate editor, British Baker, said: "This new data just goes to demonstrate that the cupcake is here to stay. In reality the market is much bigger than the data portrays as the figures don't take into account the sales of cupcakes in high street bakeries, or from the thousands of online businesses."