Cake Boss debuts on Discovery Travel & Living (Channel 707 on Astro)

Buddy Valastro in Cake Boss, beautiful flower pots we needed to recreate

Last week, I was seen struggling, tussling and coaxing dough to cooperate with me for four hours to produce delicate flowers to top a flower pot cupcake. Me!! The biggest klutz ever who can't even pipe a cupcake without her fingers trembling? Yeah, all in the cause of the debut of Cake Boss, a new television show on Discovery Travel & Living (Channel 707 on Astro) that starts today at 7pm.

roll the dough, cover with buttercream, stick and fix when it cracks

Cake Boss is basically cake decorating meets Italian mafia, hence the title "boss" as it depicts the daily ongoings in Buddy Valastro, a famous American pastry chef and cake decorator's shop called Carlo's Bakery. Combine demanding bridezillas, explosive Italian tempers and frustating family issues and you have an explosive and extremely interesting television series to tune into. At the start of the cake decorating class, we caught a wee bit of Cake Boss and it looked really interesting with no sugar issues, a crazy deadline with Brides magazine and of course, testy tempers from the whole family. Buddy definitely has his hands full with all these issues.

tools of the trade

There'll be 13 episodes in the series (see this link to Discovery Travel and Living for the episode synopsis) and they all sound hilarious - ranging from naughty erotic cakes that is disapproved by the family matriach aka Buddy's mother, Buddy being challenged to ice a cake blindfolded or else he has to wear a coconut bra and grass skirt around the bakery, the challenge of filling a cake with live birds (I wonder what happens if they poop in the cake??), cake order mix ups and etc.

delicate work involved

Back to cake decorating class that was held at the Cooking House, Desa Sri Hartamas by the ever patient Soo Chee. It looked simple - recreate a flowerpot cupcake topped with pastillage flowers. BUT, when we got our hands down and dirty with the pastillage, it was an entirely different ball game. Literally the "dough from hell", you had to knead it and coax it to a softer consistency to roll it out. Then, it was drape it around the cupcake covered with buttercream that seemed to yield cracks by a dozen. Luckily there were ways to cheat - cut out the cracks and redo a side piece. Whew! Thank god for little tips like these.

ta da - my own fantasy flower pot with a broken leaf

Next came the flower that meant cutting teeny weeny hearts out from pink dough. That wasn't too hard but then came the clincher - unfurling the sides of each heart shaped dough with a toothpick or a chopstick. Super delicate work that had me trembling inside, as my petal didn't look anything like the smooth ones the instructor had as samples. Time was catching up (yes it can take up 4 hours to concoct these delicate masterpieces!!) hence it was hurry hurry hurry to assemble everything. Some of us attempted delicate roses while I went for the easier fantasy flower - it's a flower you kinda create from your own fantasty and knowing how lousy my cake decorating skills, that sounded perfect since mine would be the flower from Hell!!

Amazingly when we finished, it didn't look that bad - not perfect as I could see my leaf was faltering, the bits of royal icing in my flowerpot soil and my imperfect pot BUT my flower actually looked very presentable and pretty. Wow, who knew those stubby fingers of mine could produce something so beautiful. While I doubt I'll ever attempt it again in the future (no way I'll spend another 4 hours to do this) but it has given me new found respect for cake decorators!! I take my hat out to them as they do such precise work and amazing stuff when they sculpt those figurines, flowers and etc on the wedding and birthday cakes. No wonder, people like Buddy Valastro are genuises, who get to do celebrity cakes such as Britney Spears circus cake. Never mind, I reckon tuning into Discovery Travel & Living tonight on Astro Channel 707 will satisfy my cake decorating aspirations instead.

Cake Boss starts today at 7pm on Astro Channel 707. The show repeats at 5am and 1pm, Wednesday, 1am on Thursdays, 4am, 12 noon and 6pm on Sundays. Catch all 13 episodes of the explosive series.