Yolanda Gampp Reveals The Big Mistake Bakers Make Under Pressure - Exclusive
If there's one woman who can do it all in cake, it's cake designer and baker Yolanda Gampp. While you've likely seen her creations come to life on her popular YouTube channel, How to Cake It, you can now watch her discuss the technical side of baked goods as a judge on Fox's "Crime Scene Kitchen." The series asks bakers to investigate a kitchen where there's evidence of something that was just baked and then attempt to replicate each dessert themselves. But no matter what the bakers are creating, it always seems there's one contestant who has trouble getting their dessert set in time for judging.
In an exclusive interview with Mashed, Yolanda Gampp explained how common baking pitfalls are only amplified once people face the time constraints of competitions. Speaking of her YouTube channel How to Cake It, where Gampp posts tutorials for intricate novelty cakes and stunning decoration, she said, "I think a lot of people assume that you do everything in one day." But that is far from how she makes her own amazing creations. Gamp added, "I take three days to make a cake and you watch a 12-minute video." So the perception of time is far from what viewers might think it is both on How to Cake It and for baking competitions like "Crime Scene Kitchen." That's why so many of the contestants run into the problem of a mousse or pudding just not setting.
With baking competitions, it's a race against the clock
Yolanda Gampp was most impressed when bakers on "Crime Scene Kitchen" mastered time management. "Baking is difficult and baking is really time-consuming. And when you're doing it against a clock, there's no time for mistakes," she said.
Gampp explained that most of her own cakes take longer than two hours to bake and assemble. She mostly uses recipes that she personally engineered, and unless there's an issue with an ingredient, any difficulties she encounters go beyond the recipe. "With me, it's usually a structural problem," she said. "It's usually structural, like it's too hot in the kitchen. Or I need to chill the cake for a long time before I can carve it, that kind of thing." So when bakers run into issues with setting their desserts, it usually is something that is out of their control.
"It's time," Gampp said. "And that's why I really empathize with them going against a clock. Because in baking, unlike cooking, you can't really save things. You either do it right or you fail and you start again. But on a competition show, you can't start again. So you have to work with whatever you have." So the next time you see someone's dessert oozing frosting between the layers, you'll know it wasn't because they lack the skill. They simply lacked the best environment or time to accomplish their dessert.
To see more of Yolanda Gampp, along with co-judge Curtis Stone and host Joel McHale, check out "Crime Scene Kitchen," on Fox.