“WINNER CAKE ALL,” the new Food Network show featuring local bakers Joe Heck (Huron Mountain Bakery) and MaryBeth Kurtz (Midtown Bakery) premieres tonight (Monday) at 10 pm.
But hold on. You won’t actually see them tonight. They won’t be appearing until a later episode, scheduled to air in two weeks– on Monday, January 21st, again at 10 pm.
Here’s how the show is going to work. On each episode, four teams of two bakers each will compete to design, bake, and decorate the best cake. There will be a winning team in each episode, but the winners will not be competing against each other.
Heck says originally there were to be 12 one hour episodes. As far as he can see, only seven have been scheduled so far.
Now, to the competition itself: The four teams are initially given the task of creating and decorating a 10 inch cake topper. One hour to get it done. One of the four teams is then eliminated.
Then, the remaining three teams get together with a special client, learn what that client wants for their special cake, and then design, bake, and decorate that special cake.
Five hours to do it all, under the watchful, unrelenting, critical eye of the TV cameras. Mistakes? We’ll see them. Unfortunate utterances? Yep, we’ll hear them.
A winner declared at the end of each episode.
Heck’s and Kurtz’s episode was actually shot back in October in Los Angeles. So….
“I can’t tell you the results,” Heck says, with a twinkle in his eyes. “It’s not allowed.”
But you get the sense that, at the very least, they probably won’t be embarrassing themselves before a national audience. They didn’t drop the cake on the floor, they didn’t set off the smoke alarm by burning it in the oven, they didn’t scream obscenities at each other for screwing things up.
Again, we’ll see their episode in two weeks, on the 21st. The premiere of the show, with other hotshot cake makers from around the country, happens tonight.
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