Mom Spelled Backwards: Throw Me Some Cake, Boss!

Throw me some cake, boss! I wanted to shout this during the Cake Boss’s recent “show” at the Tarrytown Music Hall, a sort of traveling promotional tour for this Hoboken baker’s several TV shows, books, and himself.

Taking a reality star outside the context of their “reality” is always a bit awkward. So here we are presented with this self-proclaimed “humble," stereotypically Italian, Italian known for crafting extreme cakes in the shape of giant race car, smoking house with flashing-light firetruck, naked strippers, Disney castle, and flesh-eating zombie emerging from the grave, and there’s nothing happening onstage but a few floral swirls on some cupcakes.

The screaming throngs of pre-teen girls (is Justin Bieber here?, I wondered), didn’t seem to mind the talk-heavy, decorating-light production. Pre-show they rushed up to cousin Anthony, the meat-headed delivery boy sitting in the audience, with their Carlo's Bakery signs and cameras.

The Cake Boss, aka Buddy Valastro, did airgun T-shirts at the audience in a style befitting a sporting event more than a cooking demo; this boss clearly makes his own rules. “I’m no creampuff,” he said once on his TLC show. I kept thinking only a man could pull this off—I can’t picture Martha Stewart, also adept with a pastry bag, blasting T-shirt guns—but I also kept wondering if he was pulling this off. Had I paid my ticket price and not gotten my comps, I might be upset by hearing the tale of Buddy’s rise to confectionary stardom almost verbatim from the bio on his bakery’s website.

The bio is of course a good one, and chronicles the tale of a second-generation immigrant frosting his way up the American Dream ladder. His father had bought Carlo's Bakery in the ‘60s and began teaching his 15-year-old son the ropes—from toilet-cleaning on up. Then when Buddy was only 17, father died suddenly. The son took over the shop, at first struggling to uphold his father’s reputation, and then ultimately far surpassing it.

Father, of course, would be proud. Buddy is so successful he clearly doesn’t need to do the very thing that made him famous. But then he wouldn’t be so beloved, would he? Therein lies the problem of taking the Cake Boss out of his kitchen and removing its frosting (film editing). If you’re not going to act like a magician and turn some sugar into a sculpture of modeling chocolate, fondant and “ol’ school piping,” then things risk tasting a little dull.

“He’s like a rock star,” said my 30-something seatmate, but she said it more in regards to his crazed audience than any actual rock-star-ness. Then there was my neighbor, sitting a few rows ahead of me, who complained later that she thought her ticket would at least ensure her a bite of cake. I also worried for all the moms out there whose children watch Cake Boss and expect every birthday cake to blow their little minds.

Good thing I'm more cook than baker. Like Rachel Ray. She might be bad-ass enough to shoot t-shirts too.