The latest Food Network challenge which aired last night and will be showing again during the week was a big hit with me. Imagine having to build a huge 3 foot or higher cake in a seven hour time frame. Mind boggling isn't it. Anyway for those of you who have'nt yet seen or know what the latest challenge is about, let me fill you in.
The theme for this latest challenge is Disney Pixar films. The films which the competitors, namely four of the top cake designers in the country, chose to interpert were Finding Nemo, A Bug's Life, Monster's Inc. and Toy Story.
The characters in the "Finding Nemo" cake were so spot on, especially Bruce the great white shark, that it came as no surprise when this cake was pronounced the winner of the gold medal. While Courtney Clark (cake designer) and her apprentice experienced some set backs at the onset of the competition they managed to pull everything together at the end. While the cake was fabulous in appearance I agreed with the judges critique that the cake could have stood to have more colorful coral and a better 360 degree view.
Monster's Inc, proved to be very problematic for cake designer Norm Davis ( who is alway one of my favorites in the challenges) and his assistant. Norm himself admitted that he perhaps bit off more than he could chew. The time and physical effort necessary to create "Sulley" (hand piping all that fur) left no room for error or problems of any sort. Sadly, a problem free competiotion was not in the cards for Norm. You could hear the collective gasps of the audience as this huge door, a critical piece of Norm's cake fell apart. The team knew at that moment, they were out of the running, but much to their credit they continued on so that they could at least place a cake on the table.
Orlando, while new to to being the lead designer in a food network challenge, proved that he was very much up to the task. He chose "A Bugs Life" for his cake and I must say he did a remarkable job with the creation of his characters. His artistry with the air brush, while nothing short of amazing is what gave realism and life to his characters. I hope that if asked, Orlando will keep on competing in the food network challenges.
Finally there's the "Toy Story" cake which was created by Jorge Amsler, who has competed in previous food network challenges. He always like to go huge with his creations and there are certainly times I'm sure when this works for him. That attitude however worked against him in this latest challenge. He spent so much time on creating a "mega huge" bed, that he left himself litle time to create what should have been the main focus of his piece, namely the characters. I was disappointed with his Woody and Buzz Lightyear as they were so amateurish, and definitely not what one would expect from a cake designer of caliber and talent. Jorge definitely needs to work on time management.
So if you're a Food Network Challenge junkie like me then be sure to catch this latest cake challenge.
