I loved the show and I also think Rebecca's team should have won. The cake was stunning with all of the gold and the hanging crystals and oh - those beautiful flowers that Sharon was making - WOW!!

I wish they would do away with the 1/2 hour penalties - what is the purpose of this? The time given the teams is not enough to usually finish a cake of that magnitude in the first place and how can you be fairly judged when your cake is incomplete because you had to sit out an hour. Norm would not have won if he would have had to sit out for an hour.

I also think that the members of the team should be introduced and given some air time with their name and business names. After all it is a "team" effort to put this cake together.

And I know I sound like I am down on Norm - but no way should he have won the piping contest - not from what the judges said they were looking for and that was to "copy" the original cake. Norm didn't even come close - Rebecca did!!! Norm just piped his swirls and did not even come close to the design on the original cake.

What was that stupid comment that the wedding planner said about Rebecca's cake at the end - that it was PLAIN!!! Is she blind or just stupid - PLAIN - my husband and I almost went through the TV. There was nothing plain about it - that cake was beautiful and elegant and should have won!!

I am a die hard SugarShack fan and I loved seeing Sharon and loved hearing her cute southern voice. This was one of the more enjoyable shows and fun to watch. My DH gave up the Packer/Vikings game (we live in Wisconsin) to let me watch the show on the "big" TV and he watched too! He is more into this cake thing then he likes to admit!

Sharon - your team really needs to come back next year!!! Can you post some pictures of the cake on your blog and tell us more about what it was like to be on the show now that it has been aired???? And how about a tutorial on how to make those big roses - that don't need a lot of petals?

Well that's my 50 cents worth.....
Thanks!

Hey everyone!! Thanks so much for all the nice comments. I had the most spectacularly talented ladies helping construct our cake. Sharon Zambito, Rebecca Willard, and Adele Nichols were just fabulous and I was so proud to have them on my team. They've asked both Sharon and I if we would like to come back as lead persons and we're both still mulling it over. It was a blast, but I think I might have too many other irons in the fire already.

I can share a little info about how we were doing the flowers. Willard and I made this video for Adele and Sharon so that they would know how to do the flowers. We were allowed to have some of the petals premade because they needed drying time, but nothing was to be colored or assembled in advance.

It was a great show...I like the jabbing between kitchens...that's how it should be...light and fun. I guess the young guy from BROOKLYN (Yay, Brooklyn!!!) didn't know the rest of you guys well enough to pipe in, but his work is flawless

I loved his stands & sugarwork, but I wasn't crazy about the carousel...if he had left it out, I think he may have won.

Norman was his classic self last night. Chocolate curls....again. They are beautiful, but he used the same exact idea on Challenge for the triplets last time.
Anyway...I still enjoy watching him.

I loved Reeeebecca's style most of all. Any cake with a swirl is gorgeous..LOL The most important thing is that you guys looked like you had a lot of fun. and they really should do away with the time-outs. Leave it to the skill of the decorator & cut the ridiculous drama already!

congrats on a great show!

All cakes were amazing in their own way. As a personal preference I would have chose in order, Rebecca, Mark then Norm. The customer does make the final decision, however, I can see the judges comments heavily swaying the customer. Some of the judges comments are down right mean.

Team Rebecca -- I thought this truly was a vintage themed cake. I looked the ivory and gold together. The flowers were amazing. This was my favorite. Had they not have sat out an hour things could have possibly been different. I do think the gold dusting would have been much cleaner had they had more time. But was an awesome cake.

Team Mark -- I see the vintage in the carousel, however, I personally think the choice of colors for the horses should have been more the muted colors. To me, the brightness of the horses took away from the vintage feel. Unlike the male judge, I liked the blown sugar at the bottom and didn't feel it need anything else. I did not feel Mark was disrespectful. I felt he wanted to concentrate on the task at hand.

Team Norm -- In itself it was a pretty cake. Not what I would have chosen. The separators is what threw me off. I didn't quite get those. I loved the chocolate swirls....would love to have one of the tools they made to do those...and the flowers were beautiful. The 'pumpkins' between the layers just didn't do it for me.

From what I heard, could have missed something, the customer wish list was ivory, green and vintage. Perhaps more was said and edited out of the show.

All did a great job and are amazingly talented. Just to be able to withstand the stress of the contest alone makes them all outstanding artist and heroes in my opinion. I did not even have the nerve to enter a cake in the Oklahoma State Sugar Art Show. Amazing cakes there as well.

Well - I'm going to throw my 2 cents worth in here too!

Team Rebecca was awesome - and Sharon just hearing your voice makes me smile!! Your team obviously had the best team work going I have seen on the challenges yet -- and JenniferMI's team ran a close 2nd! Go ladies!! Your cake was gorgeous, elegant, timeless in design and vintage - especially with those roses and the hanging crystals!! Just beautiful!!

I have made flowers with JenniferMI and pearls with Sharon - those I can do and get better each time! Now - that gold gilding - I have never attempted - I don't think my hand would be steady enough to try it - but the assistant made it look to easy and I thought it looked great considering the time constraint they were in.

Rebecca I would LOVE to know your recipe for the Mango filling. That sounded delicious!!

I was not a fan of the carousel at all - I do have to agree that maybe if the reception was held at a different arena or the theme was 'carnival' then maybe - but I don't want a carousel horse at my wedding events. The rest of his cake was great and he does have some great structural ideas - almost a cross between an engineer / cake decorator! And at least he did the poured sugar work which I have not had the guts to try yet.

Then - the little man in the yellow jacket -- where do I begin - I'll start with nice - his 'cake' was beautiful, the roses made by his teamlady were beautiful - But those suppose to be baskets seperators but looked like pumpkins would have me demanding a refund if I had ordered the cake. Then -- his obvious kissing up to the client and 'letting' her 'help' just cheapened his talent and cake. I am sure he never allows this in his shop!! THen -- being just 'southern' enough in my area that loves their grooms cakes -- no groom in his right mind would want a cake dusted with sugar crystals - and if that was all I offered my client I would never sell a grooms cake! His assitant was totally right in arguing that with the yellow jacket little man. THEN -- if all I could offer my clients were cake covered in white chocolate curls -- I wouldn't be selling any wedding cakes either!! Plus I totally agree that his 'stringwork' on the challenge was not stringwork at all! Who among us can make swirls?? They are super simple and easily spaced -- now stringwork like the original cake and Rebeccas is a PITA!!! But it is beautiful when done correctly - as Rebecca did-- I believe ole Norm in the little yellow jacket kissed up to more than the client!! I have liked him in previous challenges but last night he was after the 'almighty dollar - 10,000 dollars to be correct!' and I saw a side of him that I do not like at all.

Rebecca and Sharon I do hope you all will go back for another round -- but I so hope they won't have the 2 of you competing against one another!! Oh the agony of it all!!

I also totally agree with a PP that the whole team should be introduced - and as someone mentioned last week - instead of penalizing a team - which I don't think any team should get 2 - 30 minute penalties -- add time onto the team that won the challenge. Nine hours is nowhere near enough time to complete one of these cakes even with 4 experienced designers working on it! But TeamRebecca did a totally awesome job and should have won hands down - in only 8 hours!!

Cha-ching -- that's my 2 cents -

Suze

Well, I had to stay up late to watch it, so thank goodness for TiVo!!

Let me start by saying that I adore Norm. I think he's hilarious, and he puts out a beautiful product. I'm glad that other people already pointed out the "done"ness of using chocolate curls though. I also think he should have listened to his assistant and only put the sugar on the sides. IMO, it would have been much more clean looking.

I didn't at all care for the carousel cake, but then again I find something inherently creepy with vintage carousels... I know, I'm crazy. Some people are scared of clowns, this is what I'm scared of. It was clean, but I was still creeped out. He could have put anything else in there, and it would have been a million times better in my eyes.

I liked Team Rebecca's cake best, not even because of the CC aspect, but mostly because that would have been MY dream wedding cake. The pearls and the crystals were absolutely beautiful (what a cool idea to tie in the bride's bouquet!)

The bride was obviously blown away by Norm's cake... but I sort of wonder if she watched the show and if she would have picked a different one.

Sharon, I really hope you decide to do it again... you girls were hilarious to watch! You can tell that even through the stress, there was a lot of fun happening the whole time!

they have the recipes on the website already and you can check it out here: http://tlc.discovery.com/tv/ultimate-cake-off/ultimate-cake-off.html?campaign=tlc-int-hp-dl2-uco

The White Velvet Cake is from The Cake Bible -- except with buttermilk as a substitution. I told them that, too, but they didn't include that info on the website.

You guys freaking rocked! Thank God for the jabbing back and forth, that is what makes it fun, and I would assume all the off camera stuff as well! 9 hours...gotta have some fun.

I enjoyed the whole night, the excitement of waiting for the show to start, the fantastic show, the cc members all coming together for Rebecca, Sharon and the whole team, the beautiful cakes, the link for the flowers. I had a wonderful night. Thanks evevyone.

I just loved the show! It was the best one yet bc all 3 cakes were great.
I'll join the choir & say that I loved Rebecca's cake the best! I didn't get where the comment that the cake looked "too plain". It looked the most vintage & beautiful. I loved the colors, flowers, jewels, ect, ect.
Norm's cake was beautiful too, but I didn't care for the pink or the topper. I think he's a great booty kisser. Maybe that's what won it for him
I wish that the bride got to pick out her cake. I would love to know which she would have chosen. I'm sure she would've been happy with either of the 3 cakes.
Here's my vote for Rebecca & Sharon to do more challenges! You all worked so well 2gether. Your work is flawless.
BTW Sharon, don't be embarrassed by your accent! Compared to mine, yours sounds like you could be from NY.

I enjoyed the show and also thought all the cakes were beautiful. I also think that Norm had an advantage because he had participated in a previous episode, which means that he was not surprised with the 30 minute penalty and could have taken that into consideration in planning and preparing for his cake. I've also noticed that sometimes they only have the tasting and sometimes they have both the tasting and the skills contests. I don't think it is fair to have contestants be allowed to have a second chance until the entire season is over. But, that's just my opinion and life isn't, after all, very fair. I just enjoy watching to see what I can learn because I have far to go.

I'm going to have to look for reruns - I fell asleep during the last 10 minutes - and it was SOOO GOOD!

About the piping challenge? Since it was a Margaret inspired cake, it was a Margaret inspired outcome--the two things she said were that Norm had movement and rythm to the placement of all his sugar decoration.

That's what she teaches in her book.
To me that's what's so important in her book.

On the model cake--some of her stuff within the upper scallops on the top edge is all samey same same but all the scroll work below that is random and rythmic--in the book she even says to count or sing to get your cadence and to me it's like breathing in time to the mental music or the voices in your head whichever is playing louder that day.

Beyond that--any of 'em could have won the overall--I totally winced when the chick said Rebeca''s was simple--ouch--I totally think she meant to her way of thinking it was overly classic 'cause like no way does the word simple exemplify anything on that cake. Beautiful stuff, Rebecca.

I love Norm's choc curls--I love the stand--I like sugar covered cake--it's beautiful. Sunsets are easy too in the sense of little personal effort involved to produce but...

I adored the sugar work on Mark's cake--if he had bridalified the horses and carousel he'd a won--pearl reins and gold saddles and some spun sugar whirling around--gem encrusted some of it--he had all the sugar right there. Brought in the idea of the groom riding in on the white horse type of theme-ish. Love is a circle, like the rings--blablabla
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The other huge thing that if you have it recorded--you gotta help me out on--y'know during the opening pictures they show the top coupla tiers of one cake flying off and splatting tragically on the floor--if you watch it in slo-mo it is really cool the way the splat splats out farther and farther--right by the ramp--

But anyhow--that stand looks like the one Mark used for his cake sans the carousel. I could be wrong but it seems like they just set that up for the camera.
I just re-checked--Because it is his cake too--like he could really take it home or something~~

But I keep waiting for that episode to air where the poor unfortunate souls loose thier cake and it ain't gonna happen. How 'bout them apples? Tivolicious apples huh.

I mean really who's gonna ram their cake into the dumb ramp? You gotta go real real real slow with the average 5 foot cake. And the chef jackets are the wrong color for Mark's team but it really really looks like his stand--it is!! It's his cake sans the carousel--so that's just not really a team--it's part of the production crew making some drama~~

signed,
dusting off my Columbo coat, chewing on my slimey cigar

Glad I have Tivo so I can go back and watch it again. I just caught the end and sadly didn't realize who anyone else even was except Norm Now I can go back and watch with a whole new interest. All cakes were great and I didn't know what they were looking for since I didn't see the beginning but I swear Norm is the sweetest thing! I would NEVER have the skills to be on that show but I was thinking if I ever was and beat him I would feel guilty because he seems like the nicest guy! (I'm sure I'd get over the guilt when it sunk in though LOL)

Does anyone know where can I purchase the vanilla bean paste that is listed in the White Velvet Cake recipe?
And how is it sold--in a jar, tube, can?
Is one brand better than the others?
Thanks.

Thank you Thank you vrr much.

I'm home stuck to the couch making sure I only have a cold and not you-know-what.

But this revelation I've had about the show ~~ it's like going to the Haunted House at Disney where you hear this ghastly blood curdling scream like as if something awful is happening just around the next bend, in the distance just a bit--but the really spooky bad mojo never gets you when you get around that bend or the next bend---

You're just constantly hearing this in the distance and bracing for the inevitable but it never happens--my sister had to tell me that was on purpose--yeah I knew it all along! not

I mean you never want someone's top tier to pop off and splat like so much sweet roadkill but dang but don't it make great tv. Clever little buggers those tv folks.

Next time loose the custom made cake stand! Busted!!!

But I'm officially gonna stop looking for that episode--but I'm still watching the show. My sister would be proud.

K8 one smart cookie!

I love watching these shows. But there are two things that drive me crazy. They replay to much after the commercials. It wastes time when we could be watching more stuff they edit out. My biggest pet peeve, the judges. They make me crazy. They are just way to negative!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I wish they would do a challenge. I do not think they would do a good job. I woould love to see a cake challenge with buttercream cakes. Fondant is not my favorite. What do you guys think?

I agree about the repeating, I think Sugarshack (Sharon) could of filled in the gaps with her wit. That would have been a blast

ITS ON AGAIN RIGHT NOW!!!!

Kate I caught that too. I thought for sure that Mark's cake was going to fall when they were moving it based on the opening clips of the show. I wonder what's up with that.


This was definitely the best episode so far....I really loved Rebecca and Norm's cakes and I think Mark's was pretty too.

I know some of you are tired of Norm's chocolate curls, but I think he's great. He seems like such a nice man and I'd love to meet him one day....I love all of his work.