Food Network Challenge is always a joy to watch. Generally it consists of four pastry chefs making cakes or sugar sculptures that capture the given theme. This week’s Challenge was “Horror Cakes,” since we’re so close to Halloween! The chefs were told to come up with an original horror story and make a cake that told that story. Our four chefs this week were Jorg Ansler, Marianne Carroll, Lauri Ditunno, and Michelle Garcia.
Jorg decided to make a cake called “The Chopper.” Basically it was a representation of the grim reaper set astride a motorcycle made of bones as he rides off to reap his souls. Jorg only had one mishap during his construction where the tank of the chopper cracked open, but he quickly recovered. He was very innovative with his chocolate and shading, but I can’t help but feel his idea was not very original.
Marianne came to Challenge with “The Massacre at Eddie’s Bake Shop.” The premise is that the chef ordered flour and got a cursed bag. His creations came alive and ate him. Honestly, I felt this was the best design, the chef and assistant worked excellently together, and the detail was fantastic. The judges (Kerry Vincent,Gunnar Hansen, and Patrick Coston) felt the cake was a tad too cartoonish, less scary. The chef and I completely disagreed with their ruling, but oh well.
Lauri’s premise was a wedding cake. The groom had left his previous fiance at the altar and was marrying again. The one side looked like a traditional wedding cake, except the roses bled raspberry syrup and when the cake was rotated, it showed the story of the new bride being murdered by the scorned woman. A white chocolate skeleton popped out of the top. The idea was rather lovely and the cake did tell the story it was meant to, but her cake had many technical difficulties. It leaned, the base was too small, and it threatened to topple several times.
Michelle made a cake called “Happy Birthday to Me.” The cake was made with the idea of a girl popping out of the cake, except the cake split down the middle and so did she. They made the outside of the cake look like stitched leather and did a realistic representation of a split human being. However, the guts on the girl were flat, not three dimensional and there was very little gore. The cake had issues with leaning since the cakes used were damaged during transportation. Michelle not feeling well during the construction didn’t help construction.
All in all it was a great competition. Jorg won the $10,000 and the gold medal for his work. I’ve seen Jorg compete before and this had to have been his best work yet, but I felt Marianne’s design was far more original and should have won.
Comments
Jay C.
October 27th, 2009 - 5:05:47 PM
Amen! My wife and I felt that Marianne's design was the best too! The judges' comments that it was too cute and not horrific enough were simply wrong. The idea of something cute and pastel like a cupcake coming to life and eating a person is phenomenal, and the evil wedding cake was great!
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Sara Welsh
October 27th, 2009 - 6:39:20 PM
That evil wedding cake was absolutely amazing. The detail was so intense! My hubby said he could understand why they ruled that way and they should have used darker colors, but I can't think of many people who make black and gray colored cupcakes. She should have one. It's good to know I wasn't the only one who thought so!
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Paul K.
October 31st, 2009 - 2:37:05 PM
All of the judges were a bunch of dolts. They wouldn't know originality if it bit them in the ass. The grim reaper is over used, why didn't they comment on that? Oh, that's right! Because they already knew who was going to win the competition before it started. See all that sucking up to Jorg at the beginning? This episode was nothing more than a popularity contest. The real winner should have been Marianne. "The Massacre at Eddie's Bake Shop" was by far the most original, most creative, and most interesting of all the cakes. The cupcakes scurrying around and eating the bloody maimed hand was just great! The comment that it was too cutesy and too bright is absolute bull. The bloodshot eyes, sharp teeth, blood and gore is not very cutesy. It also wouldn't make sense for the cakes, cupcakes, donuts, and pies to be dark colored because the fictional baker had no idea the flour was cursed. Kerry is the one who needs to crack open that dictionary. She obviously has no idea what originality, creativity, and consistency mean.
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Michelle
October 31st, 2009 - 7:43:45 PM
Seriously, look at the judges, Gunnar Hansen should have been a clue of what they were looking for. Marianne's cake was very cute, very disney channel halloween movie. You don't show a after school halloween movie cake to Leatherface. It was not about creativity but about artistic talent. You can make cute things look tearifing look at Child's Play and Village of the Damed. Eventough Jorg's cake was a little cliche, it was creepy and was the right choice for the win. Although, if it weren' t for the fact that Michelle's cake was lopsided and the front looked childish her cake would have rocked it.
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Rosemary
November 1st, 2009 - 7:07:14 AM
I agree that the winner should have been Marianne. Her entry was like Alfred Hitchcock's "The Trouble With Harry" -- finding horror in non-cliche, innocent settings. Or like the scene in North By Northwest where Cary Grant gets buzzed by a crop dusting plane in the bucolic Midwest rather than knifed in a dark alley. I'm afraid she was aiming a bit above the judges' heads, or rather, their knowledge of cinematic horror. That's okay; not every judge is perfect. The personal vitriol behind the comment about the dictionary said a lot, though, and it said more about the judge herself than it did about Marianne. (Some jealousy somewhere, maybe? Or just someone having a bad day?)
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