Cupcake Wars is yet another competitive
Cooking Show running on
Food Network (hosted by Justin Willman), taking cues from
Iron Chef and
Chopped. Each episode is themed around a grand celebration, with four cupcake makers fighting for the right to have their centerpiece included in the festivities, as well as a $10,000 prize. There are three rounds:
- Taste: In the first round, competitors have 45 minutes to combine nontraditional ingredients following the day's theme into a delicious cupcake. (For instance, a SeaWorld episode tasks them with combining sea salt and seaweed.) Whichever chef impresses the judging panel the least is cut.
- Taste & Presentation: In the second round, the three survivors have 75 minutes to create three different cupcakes, each with its own distinct taste and appearance. One of these cupcakes must include a detail specified at the start of the round, again following the theme.
- Display: In the third and final round, the two left standing must now bake at least 1,000 cupcakes and have them arranged on their custom-made centerpiece within two hours. Fortunately, they have the help of four extra assistants, as well as two expert carpenters who must take the bakers' hastily sketched ideas and make them a reality. The judges then decide which display is worthy of being featured at the event. This last point is key, as a striking layout can let someone who struggled to survive the first two rounds edge out their competition.
This show provides examples of:
- Booze Flamethrower: A pan full of absinthe, predictably, became one.
- Brand X : Pops up in the space-themed episode. Tang is referred to as "tangerine-flavoured astronaut space drink."
- Break the Haughty: Contestants start out bragging about their prowess and how they will blow away the competition, only to be harshly criticized by the judges. Occasionally Subverted in that the contestant shown bragging and smirking the most ultimately winds up winning, albeit with a bruised ego.
- Caustic Critic: Mostly Florian. Candace is more soft, but she still hits the nail.
- Chekhov's Skill: Seda Ashikian, a contestant in the Miss USA cupcake war, said in her intro video that she was familiar with Middle Eastern ingredients. Little did she know that the guest judge was Rima Fakih and the first challenge was to use Middle Eastern ingredients.
- Crossover: One episode had Duff Goldman as a guest judge, since the reward was celebrating the 100th episode of Ace of Cakes.
- Does Not Like Spam: Florian hates red velvet cake for a number of reasons (
Hype Backlash due to the explosive popularity, the fact most people put red food dye into it, the fact he just doesn't think it's that good in general, etc.). As a result, quite a few bakers will make a red velvet cupcake just for the chance of getting a rare red velvet stamp of approval from Florian. - Don't Explain the Joke: During the Space episode:
Justin: Sixty minutes until one of you gets Pluto'd! (To the judges) Get it? Because Pluto was a planet, and then they said it wasn't?
Candace: Yeah, we get it.
- Early-Installment Weirdness: In the first episode, the second round was not a tasting round. Instead, the three remaining teams had to give the judges a grade school-style presentation about the cupcakes and display they would create for the third round. So one of the bakers was eliminated based on their description and presentation ability rather than their baking ability. Thankfully, that was quickly scrapped, and the very next episode featured the familiar format used from then on.
- Feminine Women Can Cook: Many female bakers arrive on set wearing tutus, flower decorations, frilly skirts, pink clothing, etc, in contrast with the male bakers and other low key contestants.
- Forced Meme: The first contestant mentioned under Oh, Crap! now sells T-shirts in his bakery that read "I forgot the pumpkin".
- Genki Girl: Chloe Coscarelli. Try to find a moment in the challenge where she DOESN'T have a gigantic smile.
- Impossibly Delicious Food: Despite it being no secret that round 2 is 50% taste, 50% decoration, sometimes contestants will say "We don't do decorations" and completely forego them. There have actually been instances that a contestant has punted on the decorations and still won the episode. Can you imagine how delicious those cupcakes must have been?
- Oh, Crap!: A common reaction of the bakers. One such instance had one realizing too late that he hadn't included one of the required ingredients — the first time this had happened on the then-fledgling show!
- Another memorable moment: after finishing his cupcakes for the second round, just after time ran out, a baker looked at his plate and realized he'd reversed the frostings on two of them — resulting in an apple cupcake with avocado frosting. (The look one of the judges got when he gave his rundown of the cupcakes without missing a beat was priceless.)
- One-Steve Limit: Averted, since Justin Willman and Justin the carpenter share the same first name.
- Pungeon Master: The host, Justin Willman. Expect a bad joke or pun whenever he gives a time warning to the contestants.
- One of the judges, Candace, seems to be unable to talk without being this. The quality of her puns tends to vary.
- Real Men Wear Pink: Considering that most of the contestants are female, the few men in the competition tend to comment about the contrast between them. Particularly, Bruce's Bakery was a military-themed team. Another contestant mentioned the irony that he, a tattooed motorbike type of guy, loves to make cute cupcakes.
- Reality Show Genre Blindness: After 9 seasons, it's also an implied fact that Florian is tired of Red Velvet cupcakes, so you better give him THE PERFECT RED VELVET or at least give it a twist variant.
- One assistant in the Poker episode warned the primary baker against making a red velvet cupcake because of this, but was ignored. Ironically, they were sent home for every cupcake but the red velvet, which Florian and Candace sincerely enjoyed.
- Schmuck Bait: While the kitchens include things like chocolate/candy molds and various simple decorations, contestants who only rely on throwing one or two of these onto their cupcakes tend to get blasted.
- Just because there're 20 different ingredients for the taste challenge, it doesn't mean you have to use a lot of them. Candace and Florian critique mostly if the ingredients are distinguished in the mix without fighting each other, not how many are there.
- The sweet ingredients on a sweet-and-savory inspiration table in the first round. Even though it is a taste challenge, the judges will call bakers out for taking the easy way out if they do not choose one of the less appealing ingredients.
- Spoiler Opening: Each opening includes a shot of the two finished set pieces, while avoiding the identities of who survived long enough to create said pieces.
- Not to mention during the "...who will go on to create a one-thousand cupcake display for _______" they will show film of the event, with the winning cupcakes in attendees' hands.
- Stern Teacher: Both Candace and Florian can nitpick every single amount of ingredient flavor of a cupcake.
- Too Dumb to Live: In one episode, one of the contestants mentioned her specialty is using beer in cupcakes. Despite the theme of the episode being baking cupcakes for the 100th anniversary of the Girl Scouts, she insisted on doing a beer cupcake in the first round because it was her specialty. The judges were appalled that she'd think it was a good idea to serve a beer cupcake to little girls, and to the surprise of no one, she was the first contestant to be eliminated.
- There have been a few times where contestants have decided not to do any decorations in the second round because they "don't do decorations." Keep in mind that this is fifty percent of the judging in the second round, meaning that their only hope of advancing is that their cupcakes are perfect or one of their competitors screws up everything.
- One episode had a Chinese New Year theme. For the second round, not only did one of the bakers ignore the theme entirely for flavor (carrot cake and banana pudding flavors, for example, without even trying to, say, add Chinese Five Spice to the carrot cake or something), her decorations were based not on Chinese culture or new year celebration, but on Chinese take-out (such as a fortune cookie and take-out box). The judges called her out on the offensive stereotype. She went home that round, even being beaten by a baker who had not been able to get a single decoration on her unfinished cupcakes.
- Underdogs Never Lose: Frequently invoked; most of the contestants come from small or fledgling businesses, and often refer to themselves as the underdog. Thus, on any given episode you're likely to see three or all four competitors describing themselves as the underdog who's going to surprise everyone and win it all.
- Chefs with self-imposed limitations, such as keeping vegan or gluten-free, tend to do well despite that being a big disadvantage.
- Though that was subverted during the first champions' showdown: one of the competitors, seeing she was up against Chloe, decided to do her own vegan cupcake... earning the only heavy criticism in that episode and becoming the first to go.
- Yank the Dog's Chain: One episode had the judges heavily praising all three of the contestants in the second round. When they came back after the deliberation, the host made several leading comments about how "they felt all of you deserved to go on to the final round..." — giving them some time to react to the suggestion before adding "Unfortunately, they had to eliminate somebody". Made sense given they have only two master carpenters, but still, was the Hope Spot really necessary?
