Local celebrity -- and reality TV cake-design champion -- Mike Elder brought in four of his friends, all national culinary reality-show heavyweights, to compete for handmade sculptural trophies yesterday at the "Icing on the Cake" sugar exposition and competition, a benefit for the local domestic-violence shelter Newhouse, at the Overland Park Sheraton Hotel; the fundraiser netted $15,000 for the organization.
It was a particularly terrific night for California-based Debbie Goard of Debbie Does Cakes: The Oakland designer won both the "People Choice" prize -- voted by the 450 participants at the event who used cash instead of ballots -- and the judges' prize for her towering construction that had, like all four competing cakes, a Kansas City theme.
Goard's cake -- inedible, like all the competing cakes in the three-hour competition -- was a 3-foot high assemblage of an iced "barbecue" sauce bottle topped with a plate of realistic but confectionary "ribs," a cobette of buttered corn, a harmonica -- representing Kansas City's jazz heritage -- and a shuttlecock. Goard's construction was attached to speakers that played music as smoke poured out of unseen holes in the bottle.
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Call me and I will let you taste my cake and all it's creations and you'll see that we are true to our artform inside and out.
And it was amazing as well Debbie! You and your team did a wonderful job! Congrats on the win and hope to see you defend your title next year!
Brian, you won't either... you guys were awesome! And the cake was as good as any I have tasted!
sorry not a big fan of the sickle and hammer either.....don't know what it has to do with the good ole' USA!
I happen to not be a cake maker, and actually, don't particularly like cake (or many other sweets for that matter). I am, however, someone who can appreciate the gift these people have for combining artistry and culinary delights to make amazing cakes.
Give it a try sometime...
I have plenty of attention without obsessed and defensive cake makers. I
have a pretty good idea what goes into a cake and it doesn't take much to
impress people raised on WalMart sheet cakes. I have no argument with the
art side of you cakes, but it's not my idea of a good cake and that's what I
expressed in my original comment. So I am not your customer, not a big deal
and you don't have to act all hurt and misunderstood and stop trying to
convince me that I am wrong or not worthy of your cakes. I will continue to
like the cakes I like even if they are not shaped like ribs, or Disney
World, or a tractor, and you will continue to do what you do for people who
enjoy the stuff you make. There are plenty of things I think are awesome
that you may find disagreeable and unlike you, I won't be trying to convince
you otherwise.
Oh, and P.S. you obviously haven't been lucky enough to eat a custom cake since you don't know that the inside is just as important as the outside to those who make it.....
I can understand (if said someone who has no idea what goes into those cake), would be a mite negative about what it is all about. Until I started doing cake, I was most impressed with anything I got from HyVee or WalMart. But my perception has changed now that I stay up untill all hours of the early morning from the day before, making a custom cake that is celebrating someones milestone. All the artists at this particular event (and events like it) are just that..... artists. The particular cake you speak of that "was big enough to live inside and had Christmas lights strung all over" was constructed by just such a cake artist. And if they had stuck to paper mache as you suggested..... you wouldn't have been so impressed by it in the first place. So thank you for your contradiction.... and enjoy the replies to your comment, since it's my opinion that it is the only reason you decided to be negative in the first place.... for attention.
We had carved 600 sevings of cake for the big rib design and the crowed ate the scraps. I didn't hear one complaint
It's art in cake form! How does it get any better than that?? If you were there, you would understand the joy it brings to everyone and the incredible energy you experience by being surrounded by so many with the same passion. Besides, paper mache doesn't taste near as good.
My family and I were in attendance and LOVED the cake trimmings we got to sample as the artist/chefs were working on their pieces. This was a fantastic event - great atmosphere, high energy, lots of fun, good people and a great cause. And yes, GOOD CAKE!
Why are you being so negative? Were you even there? If not, perhaps you should attend next year, or enter a piece yourself? Then you could speak from experience as opposed to simply spouting misinformation....
Everyone in the audience that was actually tasting the cake thought it was pretty darn good! Now with the shows on TV....thats a little different. The cakes are made for the competition on air....but you better believe it that every single one of those amazing artists could reproduce those cakes for a client and they would all taste great!
I have no doubt it was made out of cake with the cake used mostly as a
building material. Would you agree that in these competitions and TV shows
taste takes 2nd place to looks. I am not trying to somehow diminish the
fact that these cakes are awesome works of art but as an edible items they
are just about as useful as ice sculptures.
The cakes were made out of cake....but with food guidelines and the way they are handled they wouldn't be served to the public. I have pictures showing us actually cutting our winning cake just to show you that it was "REAL" cake!
ummm they're made out of cake?/ that isn't enough to do with cake? was an awesome event! Was more like a rock concert at times! just amazing!
I never understood what these have to do with cakes. The might as well give up and make them out of paper mache. The coolest cake I've ever seen was at the window of a Mexican bakery in KCK, I think it was big enough to live inside and had Christmas lights strung all over.
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