Awkward Moments We All Witnessed On Cake Boss
"Cake Boss" is a reality television series on TLC and Discovery Family that follows Buddy Valastro and his tight-knit squad of trusted bakers as they take on elaborate cake orders from customers with unusual or challenging requests. From a wildly realistic alligator to an out-of-this-world space shuttle, it seems the sky's the limit for the imaginative cakes that Buddy and his talented team at Carlo's Bakery can ingeniously design and meticulously construct. The series premiered in 2009, ran for 14 seasons, and spawned some spin-offs.
With a cast of expressive and opinionated characters who aren't afraid to wear their hearts on their sleeves, the atmosphere on "Cake Boss" mostly feels like that of a loving family, occasionally wavering into slightly more confrontational territory. When you mix in customers paying top dollar for extraordinary cakes to celebrate landmark events, there are a lot of high expectations all around that can lead to some uncomfortable flashes of tension and absurdity. Here are some awkward moments we have all witnessed in "Cake Boss."
The coffin cake for a cemetery vampire party
Most people would never dream of eating cake surrounded by buried bodies, but that's exactly how an aspiring vampire named Betty chose to celebrate her new existence as a member of the fanged undead. Betty enthusiastically explains to Carlo's Bakery owner Buddy Valastro: "We need a coffin cake. Me and my friends are vampires, and I'm going to become a vampire. It's a really big event. I'm very excited, and I've been working on it for five years, and they've finally accepted me."
Betty continues to clarify her request, specifying that she wants the coffin to be big enough to hold a full-grown adult, eyeing Danny Dragone, adding, "It would be great if it was him. He looks like the right kind of victim that we want in there." She ends her request by asking that the cake bleeds when it's cut into. As you'd imagine, Buddy and the kitchen crew find it difficult to hold back their discomfort and surprise, shooting each other looks of total disbelief. By the end of the episode, a swarm of Betty's fanged friends is happily devouring the "bleeding" cake with their bare hands, and Buddy bows out, saying, "I think we've seen enough. Let's get the hell out of here."
A chandelier cake drops from the ceiling
The ornate, extravagant designs of chandeliers tend to conjure up images of lavish spaces and sparkling ballrooms fit for royalty. So when a party planner approaches Buddy Valastro with an order for a chandelier cake, telling him, "I think this is gonna be a big challenge. You might hate me a lot when this is over," it's clear that Buddy has his work cut out for him. The pressure ratches up when Buddy realizes the cake is for Bob Kuster, a successful artist who has been making gorgeous handblown glass chandeliers for decades. To make matters worse, the chandelier cake needs to be actually hung from the ceiling — no easy feat for a fancy, oversized pastry.
Buddy and his team do an amazing job on the chandelier cake, decorating it with gorgeous spirals of sugar and LED lights to make it glow. When it comes time to show the chandelier cake to everyone at Bob's party, the room is equally impressed, clapping and cheering as it's unveiled. The trouble comes when it's time to lower the chandelier cake: As Buddy unravels the rope wrapped around a hook on the wall, he underestimates how heavy the cake is. The chandelier cake suddenly drops from the ceiling and nosedives into the floor, crashing and smashing apart onto the ground as the entire room screams in horror. The disappointed look on Bob's face, along with Buddy's pure shock, make for a truly awkward moment in one of the biggest fails in "Cake Boss" history.
A birthday cake tumbles down a flight of stairs
One of the things we take for granted is how challenging it can be for bakers to successfully and gracefully transport colossal masses of intricately-decorated layered cake to its final destination. Considering that cakes tend to be made for special events, it's always very important to keep them in flawless condition throughout their journey. No one wants to eat a sad, ruined cake, and the bakers certainly don't want to start over from scratch when one gets all messed up. Unfortunately, the reality is that there will always be a few cake casualties in the baking business — and that's a lesson that Danny and Anthony learn the hard way as they recklessly walk down a flight of stairs holding a towering birthday cake between them.
In an omen of what's to come, as Danny and Anthony head into the stairwell with the birthday cake, Danny comments on how heavy the cake is. Regrettably, this observation doesn't seem to slow them down much as they descend the stairs with the cake. As they take their first steps downward with the cake, Anthony can sense some imbalance and calls out to Danny, but Danny doesn't make much of an effort to slow down or correct course. The cake tilts forward and sides off the board, nails the wall, and violently tumbles down the stairs, breaking apart into an oblivion of crumbs. Everyone's reaction in the aftermath makes this "Cake Boss" scene one of the most awkward moments in the show.
A crowd cheers for a toilet cake
A toilet is probably one of the most unappetizing objects you can possibly imagine. Yet when Buddy Valastro's local plumbing supply company consults with him for a cake to celebrate their 100th anniversary, he finds himself designing an edible stool pool fit for consumption. Here's the real kicker: The clients want the toilet cake to actually flush.
Buddy has the team bring in a real toilet bowl to help them model their cake, and as he's jokingly sitting on it in the kitchen to ponder the logistics of how to properly design a cake that somehow flushes, he comes up with the idea to trim down and customize one of the bakery's plastic fondant buckets. The toilet cake ends up looking very realistic with a functional flush, but the weirdness sets in when the clients and their colleagues see the cake itself. As an overjoyed crowd hoots and hollers over a toilet cake, you can't help but feel some level of strangeness at the sight of it all. Justin, one of the owners of the plumbing company, even says, "If our grandfather could see this now, he'd be so proud." Who would've thought that an edible toilet could evoke so much genuine delight?
New flavor tastes like antifreeze
One of Carlo's Bakery's signature sweet treats is the "lobster tail" — something he had previously struggled to make, it's an interpretation of sfogliatelle that's stuffed with traditional French cream made from vanilla bean custard that's mixed with whipped cream and sugar. Grace Faugno, the daughter of the original owner, talks about how the lobster tail pastries have a special place in her heart, considering that her father developed the original recipe. So when Joey Faugno and the rest of the bakers experiment with new filling flavors, Grace is less than pleased.
The first new flavor everyone tries is the bubble gum flavor, and Grace can be seen immediately shaking her disapproval upon her first taste. But it's the next flavor, caramel popcorn, that brings out the strongest response. When Grace tastes the caramel popcorn filling, she winces and shudders in absolute disgust. Joey joins in for a taste and lets out a sickened howl, sticking his tongue out and throwing his spoon into a trash can, saying, "I think the ratio might be a little off on that one. It just tastes like antifreeze." All of this happens in front of other bakers who undoubtedly worked on these new fillings, setting up a potentially uncomfortable scene. Luckily, most of the crew just laughs it off. As Grace leaves the kitchen, she tells the crew to call her back when they "have some real flavors to taste."
Sliding pizza cake through a window
In another great example that highlights the challenges of cake transportation, Buddy Valastro and his team have to figure out how to smoothly transfer an enormous pizza cake to its final destination. John, the owner of Lombardi's, wants Carlo's Bakery to make him a cake to celebrate the pizza shop's 110th anniversary.
Buddy decides to make an enormous cake in the shape of a slice of pizza to help John celebrate the pizzeria's anniversary. The cake comes out looking great; Buddy even uses a blow torch on the "cheese" to make it look like real mozzarella that came out of a coal-fired oven. Here's the problem — the customized pizza cake is a litter bigger than expected, and no one's quite sure how to get it inside the pizzeria. This predicament forces the crew to collectively pass it through the restaurant's window. The loud, grunting gibberish coming from the team as they struggle to pass it through the window makes this moment a particularly weird watch. One thing's for sure: Witnessing a crowd of people groan as they struggle to move a pizza cake through a window isn't something you see every day.
Buddy's reaction to zombie cake
When Buddy Valastro sets up a cake consultation with Christina and Jason Meehan, he unknowingly sets himself up for another morbid chapter in the creative chronicles of "Cake Boss." Christina and Jason inform Buddy that they're organizing a zombie walk — a gathering of zombie lovers and horror film aficionados who dress up like flesh-eating monsters and roam the streets to strike terror in the hearts of the general public. The event will conclude with an afterparty "zombie prom," and they'd like a customized zombie cake to celebrate and devour with their fellow members of the living dead.
As Jason and Christina describe their concept for the zombie cake — gruesome-looking with rotting blood and guts — the look on Buddy's face is priceless. Buddy grits his teeth and shifts in his chair and looks pretty weirded out. As a baker with a gift for building beautiful cakes, it seems that Buddy is slightly uncomfortable with the notion of accepting a project that embraces such a vile vision. Buddy even admits, "I'm so far out of my element."
Watching Mary scold her employees
Effectively managing other people requires good judgment and excellent communication skills, with some level of awareness and humility about the power dynamics at play. Unfortunately, those are traits that some people in positions of authority don't seem to fully possess, setting up awkward encounters and troublesome interactions with staff.
Mary Sciarrone, a cake consultant who also happens to be Buddy Valastro's sister, developed a reputation for drama during her tenure on "Cake Boss" for her demanding attitude and degrading communication style. During one particularly revealing episode, Mary informs us of her plan to train other managers to do her job so that she can sit at home and get her paycheck mailed to her. Mary calls a meeting with her younger managers-in-training and immediately tells everyone that guiding them is a waste of her time. When several employees voice their concerns that Mary is constantly agitated and yelling at them, she dismissively reminds them of where the door is and threatens to fire them. It's clear that Mary refuses to take anyone's feedback to heart and can't be reflective enough to hold herself even remotely accountable for her own behavior. Her entitled attitude and the way she undervalues and mistreats her employees create a truly awkward spectacle to witness.
Anthony gets yelled at for a sheet cake
Just like with any other skill, when it comes to baking, there's always more to learn. Running a kitchen comes with a lot of responsibilities, and one of those obligations tends to be training those with less experience. But teaching requires patience, and that's something Buddy Valastro and his senior bakers have run out of when they see the sheet cake that young Anthony just pulled out of the oven.
Sunken in and cracked, the sheet cake looks dilapidated and unprofessional, which is bad news Carlo's Bakery. But rather than calmly talking to Anthony about his process to figure out where he went wrong, the elder statesmen of the kitchen use Anthony's error to completely roast him, yelling and shaming him for the sad state of his sheet cake. Toward the end of the scene, Buddy informs Anthony that if his sheet cake blunders continue, he'll be in "big trouble." The entire fiasco feels really dramatic, and it's a bit uncomfortable to witness such a punitive overreaction to something so trivial.
Mary asks another bakery to make her birthday cake
When your brother is a famous baker and your birthday is right around the corner, there's probably an expectation that he'll be hooking you up with an awesome cake to celebrate. So when Mary Sciarrone approaches Buddy Valastro to inform him that her 40th birthday is coming up, describing it as a "national holiday," she gets visibly annoyed when Buddy teases her and brushes her off. As Mary shouts in the kitchen yelling, "It's my birthday!" Buddy sarcastically claps and further enrages her.
Even though Buddy is clearly just joking, his antics seems to really strike a nerve in Mary. She storms out of the kitchen, telling everyone, "You think you're so great, but you're not the only bakers in town." The bakers smile and wave goodbye as she walks out the door, looking truly happy that Mary has left the kitchen. As Mary complains to other employees about her interaction with Buddy, she childishly admits, "I want undivided attention, and he's not giving it to me." But Mary takes it to another level when she actually picks up the phone and calls another bakery in town to request her birthday cake, informing them that her brother "is being a jerk" and that she knows they "can make a better cake than he can."
Mocking Danny for looking like a bear
After a group of sea-faring travelers crosses the Atlantic from Norway on a gorgeous recreation of an old Viking ship, they meet with Buddy Valastro to customize a cake for their triumphant arrival in New York. They decide on a Viking-themed cake in honor of their amazing ship and the long journey they just endured.
As Buddy brainstorms in the kitchen with other bakers to work on designing the Viking ship cake, he talks about his vision for animal fur, comparing it to Danny Dragone who he says looks like a bear. Danny looks less than amused and glares at everyone, asking, "Do I look like a bear to you?" When everyone confirms that he does, Danny looks offended and scowls. It's all in good fun, but it really does seem like Danny feels a little insulted being likened to an oversized hairy beast known for its monstrous appetite.
A cake for a cat wedding
When Mary Sciarrone meets up with a client named Ben at a cat cafe for a cake consultation, she isn't quite sure what to expect. Mary learns that Ben wants to customize a cake for a cat wedding that he's arranging for two of the cafe's adoptable cats. Upon learning what this project is for, Mary's eyes freeze, and then she looks away from Ben in what seems to be a genuine moment of confusion and discomfort. Because Carlo's Bakery has a great reputation for working at respected events, it's possible that catering a cat wedding isn't exactly the kind of work the company wants to attach its name to.
The most awkward moment comes near the end of the episode at the wedding, as Mary officiates the marriage between these two cats. As flower petals are being tossed around the whiskered bride and groom, with a meowed version of "Here Comes the Bride" being played in the background, Mary improvises a speech to officially wed them. At some points, Mary is actually speechless as she absorbs the absurdity going on around her. Can't say we blame her.