phantoms-lair:

lornacrowley:

lornacrowley:

this happened during the pre-chopped era so idk if anyone remembers this but there was this one episode of cake challenge where they had to make birthday cakes for one of the judges and this one contestant HATED that judge so she made this like, giant slab of undecorated yellow cake and stuck a bunch of skewered strawberries on it (i think the judge was like. known to have a scott conant red onions-like relationship with strawberries) and then she set it on fire and presented the burned mess to the judges table. anyways i think about that at least once a month it’s so aspirational

i dont remember the episode name but this was the cake

Okay, so I remember this episode clearly, I had it saved on my DVR till it busted.

Okay, the cake artist here is named Stevie, and she is one of the few I have no respect for. She is an Artiste  and italics can’t quite portray the disdain dripping from my mouth when I say that.

To give you a rough example of why i feel that way, let’s go back to her first time on Challenge. The contest was rice krispy treat (*couch* I mean cereal treat) bridges. What Stevie did was have a wooden frame tilted at an angle with strings for the bridge cables, which she wrapped in seaweed. Notice something I didn’t include in that description? Yeah, no cereal treats in the cereal treat contest. In fact, nothing really edible at all. In a food challenge. Plus if I remember correctly the thing fell and broke.  So yeah, she came in last place and actually complained how the win was stolen form her because the judges were too blind for her artistic vision. Yeah. One of those.

So let’s break down this train wreck, shall we?

For starters, it wasn’t terrible on purpose, her initial plan was to show up Kerry Vincent and make her have to acknowledge her superior skill. But things started going wrong almost immediately. take the Strawberry Spikes. Stevie realized her cake wasn’t going to be as tall as the rules required (apparently she read them this time) so she used those to make up the height. The weird crinkly edging, for I don’t remember what reason she plated the outside of the cake in Sugar sheets. I think it was to make it look smooth but it didn’t work out. Especially when she kinda snapped half way through and just started tossing chocolate syrup, honey, and whatever else she could on.

And then the best part. Stevie decided the cake needed candles. And by candles, I mean little ramikins filled with alcohol. Which she lit on fire. Fun fact about sugar sheets – they are highly flammable. So yeah, Stevie set her cake on fire during the judging.

I honestly think it looks better post fire extinguisher.

On the flip side, let’s talk about Jason Ellis, aka the guy who won.

He’d also taken heavy criticism in the past from Kerry. And he built his whole cake around showing her how much he’d listened and improved. He started his planning process not with ‘Birthday cake’ but ‘what do I know about Kerry and what she values in cake’. And made this

Clean, elegant, and precise.

These two cakes symbolize the difference between learning from criticism and getting butthurt.