Food Network Birthday Cake Challenge

[tony2x]

My boyfriend and I were watching Food Network Challenge in our hotel room where 5 cake decorators were making cakes for an eight year old boy called Max. We had to leave 10 minutes before the end right at the tense moment where the nice lady with the ugliest cake I have ever seen (it was supposed to be the poor boy playing football) put the head on back to front. I think the poor lad will be having nightmares and extended therapy to get over the horror that was the cake, but I digress. I wanted to know if anyone saw this and could tell us which one won the contest!

Thanks in anticipation!

T

[duckduck]

The quality of the shows has gone downhill more and more as they seem to be trying to increase the drama. I keep hoping they will get back to more honest competitions without the set up for drama before the show even starts.

[duckduck]

The cakes and sugar work is really about all I tune in for any more. I find most of the rest of it to be boring.

[tony2x]

As a recent replanting from the UK I miss my UKFood :( However, i think that Food Network Challenge is a good show, if only for the comedy value when they muff it up. I enjoy watching the cake and sugar work but also appreciate it when they move to other areas of expertise as it gives me an insight into the foodies in this wonderful country.

If any of you find yourselves in the UK then I can recommend UKFood for several reasons:

1. They have a daily live food show called Great Food Live.
2. No Rachael Ray!
3. Lots of original programming which is still repeated a litle too much for my liking.
4. Repeats of CLASSIC British Food programmes, such as Floyd on (insert title here), Gary Rhodes out the wazoo.

We also get a lot of mainstream channels showing food programmes, my particular favourite being BBC1s Saturday Kitchen with James Martin. We really do elevate our celebrity chefs to superstar status!!!!

[chowser]

Food Network must realize there's a comedy/gasping value to its network challenges. There was one sugar one recently where they had to move the whole sculpture up one staircase, across a stage and down, all by themselves. It adds nothing to the artistry of the sugar art (which was beautiful) but a lot of suspense.

[Bostonbob3]

Does anybody else find the whole "Challenge" series on Food Network to be a horrible bore?

Cakes and spun sugar aren't exactly my idea of what that channel should be about (IMHO of course).

At least not so much of it.

[Katie Nell]

For the most part, I think it is pretty boring once you've seen one or two of them, but when it's 2 degrees F outside and there's nothing else one, it's not so bad!!

[C. Hamster]

The soccer player cake was so atrocious-looking in the intitial sketch that I assumed that it HAD to end up better looking when done.

But it looked exactly like the sketch only with a head and arms that faced backward.

I think the boy wanted to pick the castle cake but was talked into the other one, as he made some reference to it being one his friends would like better.

We'll see that kid in commercials soon, I predict.

[Seldomsated]

I know - I saw that too, and I was hysterical with laughter. It looked like the work of a second-grader, which I don't think was really the point. And to put the head on backwards - well, that was the kicker.

[tony2x]

What a shame, I wish that the lunatic that entered the disembodied soccer player would have won. It provided us with no end of entertainment! :)

[amaebi]

Don't worry that you didn't see the end of the show. food network repeats their shows like 100 times so it'll be on again very soon!

[TrishUntrapped]

I saw this episode a long time ago, and as I recall, it appeared that the boy was going to choose a different cake (he said so), but the producers talked him into choosing one that was "better?"

Cringe time.

[LisaAZ]

I think it was the treehouse one ... with animals ....

[Katie Nell]

Yes, with a parakeet (parrot? don't remember for sure!) on top.

[ballulah]

No, not the one with the parakeet, that was the French (or Belgian?) guy who specialized in sugar work. It was the two guys who didn't have any training who have a cake business based in the South (North Carolina maybe?). They did the very green cake with the hand-molded chocolate gorilla on top. It was quite a charming cake...with the cake crumb sand at the base.

[Katie Nell]

Oops... I thought it was one and the same! Or maybe I just liked the parakeet one better!