A cake shaped like feet?
$30 million dollars?
A piano?
Keep watching to find out what kinds of cakes Buddy Valastro has created with his team at
Carlo's Bakery.
Here are the best and worst cakes we've seen on Cake Boss!
When Buddy Valastro's niece asks for an "under the sea" themed cake for her Sweet 16, Valastro
and his team set to work creating one of the most intricate and interactive desserts Carlo's
Bakery has seen.
In the center of the creation is a huge aquarium swimming with tropical fish and a handmade
coral reef sculpture, and the edible underwater scene that surrounds it features cake-rendered
sea creatures of all shapes and sizes.
The team replicates the coral's jagged edges and variant textures with a combination of
isomalt, modeling chocolate, fondant, and layered colorful frosting.
"It was the sickest coral we've ever done."
The team adorns the towering confection with flashing lights, making the whole scene appear
watery and rippling.
To top it off, Valastro engineers a helicopter-like propeller that spins two cake fish around
the entire structure.
With both real fish and their sweeter clones, this cake is a masterpiece that mimics the
majestic world under the sea.
When Buddy Valastro and his team are hired to make dessert to celebrate the 40th anniversary
of Sesame Street, Carlo's Bakery creates an entire city block out of cake.
The final product captures each tiny detail of this beloved childhood show.
Valastro wanted the cake to properly commemorate Sesame Street's emphasis on interactive learning,
so the cake portrays not only the characters of the show, but the letters and numbers they
teach viewers as well.
At approximately eight feet long, the team had to transport the cake in separate pieces
and then put it all together.
It all paid off in the end, when Cake Boss viewers witnessed the whole cast of Sesame
Street gathering around the table to take in the delicious miniature versions of themselves.
"Me trying to contain meself!
Oh, it smells so good!"
For the 30th anniversary of NASA's Space Shuttle program, Buddy Valastro and his team made
one of their most extravagant cakes of all time.
The cake is impressive in itself.
It contains each part of a functional space shuttle: an orbiter attached to solid rocket
boosters and an external tank, frosted and seemingly ready for takeoff.
But this cake is more than just frosting and fondant.
As usual, Valastro couldn't resist going above and beyond expectation: this one flies.
With its flaming engine and the American flag hand-painted on the side of the rocket, it's
easy to forget this machine is edible.
Thankfully, it never actually shot into space.
Valastro's clever engineering allowed guests to see a rocket "fly" without losing their
dessert to the stratosphere.
Buddy Valastro isn't all pyrotechnics and pizzaz.
His technical craft and artistry is what makes his cakes so unique.
There's no better cake to show off Valastro's fine-tuned detail work than the Leaning Tower
of Pisa model he made for a wedding.
The cake mimicked the Italian tower's medieval architecture down to each Corinthian column
and capital.
The couple who hired Carlo's Bakery stressed the importance of avoiding a "Falling-Over
Tower of Pisa," but with the Cake Boss himself, and his team of skilled bakers, their worries
were for nothing.
Valastro told the New York Post,
"It's like being an artist.
You spend days painting a painting.
When you finish it, you step back, you feel like you want to fall down, then you say,
'Look what I did with my God-given hands.'
When I'm making cakes, I go into that zone, I don't hear nothing, I don't feel nothing,
all my pain goes away."
At over four feet tall, it wasn't quite as big as the real thing, but it certainly tasted
much better.
"We're talking about making a life-size race car cake."
When the president of the Retail Bakers Association approached Carlo's Bakery with this idea,
Buddy Valastro was skeptical, to say the least.
"You know how long it would take to make a cake an actual size of a car?
You gotta be nuts!"
But before long, as Valastro often does, he finds himself carried away with excitement
and enthusiasm for the project, insisting that this cake isn't going to be, as he put
it, "just any car."
The NASCAR model includes all the bells and whistles of real race cars in cake form.
The Cake Boss team built it by covering layers of pound cake and Rice Krispie treats with
fondant, modeling chocolate, and 2,000 pounds of buttercream frosting.
Under the hood — yes, there's a hood, one taken from a real car and wrapped in fondant
— lay an edible engine.
It took a team of 56 people four days to finish the masterpiece and ended up being the biggest
cake Valastro had ever seen, let alone built.
When Shenandoah Conservatory, a music school in Winchester, Virginia, wanted to throw a
party for their donors who helped them purchase 94 new pianos for their music students, they
knew the only place to turn was Carlo's Bakery.
The task for Valastro and his crew?
Create a life-sized piano cake to feed a party of 700 people.
"We've done some huge cakes.
This one's probably top ten."
And it was no easy feat.
The team was understandably nervous to drive a giant cake balanced on three legs all the
way down to Virginia, so creating a stable base was key.
And then there was the issue of covering their massive confection with one seamless piece
of fondant to replicate the smooth finish of a Steinway [STYNE-way].
In order to get a piece big enough, Valastro had to fully climb on top of the counter to
roll it out himself.
"Grand pianos have the most beautiful, glossy, black lacquer, and the way we're gonna achieve
this, is we are gonna steam the heck out of this cake."
In the end, the team delivered an impeccable Steinway replica, complete with detailed sheet
music and all 88 edible piano keys sitting atop a stunning gold base.
Buddy was approached by some local dollhouse collectors who were having an open house to
show off their extensive antique dollhouse collection, and they wanted a special cake
for the occasion.
Valastro wasn't content to just make a life-sized dollhouse out of cake; his team also created
several rooms filled with miniature edible furniture to fill up this tiny home.
Using a molasses swiss cream filling for the structure of the house itself, the design
team also sculpted a mini velvet sofa, a little dining table complete with a doily [DOY-lee]
table runner, and tiny flatware.
The kitchen had a fondant stove and a tiny coffee pot.
And the proverbial cherry on top?
They even made little paintings and portraits to hang on the walls, all out of edible, moldable
fondant icing.
"We got everything in here, including the kitchen sink!"
If the cake business doesn't work out, at least Valastro knows they can easily pivot
to the construction business.
This Cake Boss creation drew from the most unlikely inspiration: tax season.
Buddy Valastro's accountant friend asked him to make a cake for his CPA employees who were
being overly taxed by a brutal tax season.
What better way to honor a group of people under stress by the IRS than with a life-sized
replica ... of themselves?
Buddy built his stressed-out accountant using brown derby cake, which is made with whipped
cream and fruit.
And in order to achieve that lifelike look, he had his staff pose in various anxious ways
so he could get the body language just right.
While the size and scope of the cake is astounding, it's the attention to detail that really brought
it to the next level.
From the look on the cake CPA's face and the crumpled receipts to the container of Chinese
food, the post-it notes, the lifelike office phone, and the laptop computer, it's all so realistic.
Anything that can make taxes seem appetizing is a win.
"I think the thing is unbelievable and let's be honest, the size is fascinating.
I can't believe what Buddy was able to do."
The owners of a New York-based Colombian coffee shop wanted to celebrate four years of being
in business so they asked the Cake Boss for a cake that not only celebrated the success
of their cafe, but that honored their homeland of Colombia, the source of their one-of-a-kind
coffee beans.
Buddy incorporated their rich coffee into the buttercream and also built a cake featuring
two giant burlap sacks overflowing with actual Colombian coffee beans.
He cleverly pressed an actual piece of burlap into some fondant to give his confection that
realistic burlap texture.
His team also constructed a coffee mug bearing the colors of the Colombian flag and a detailed
Colombian sombrero.
But the star of this cake was the silver coffee pot seemingly floating in mid-air.
This gravity-defying centerpiece really takes this cake to a whole new level.
The secret?
A metal pipe covered in molding chocolate gives the illusion of a stream of hot coffee
pouring into the mug.
Cafe owner Lili cried at the sight of the cake, and really what more could a Cake Boss
ask for?
Buddy Valastro's hometown plumbing company wanted to celebrate its 100th birthday in style.
Naturally, they hired Carlo's Bakery and the Cake Boss crew to bake a toilet-themed cake
for the big event.
Valastro and his team decided on a life-size vintage model, complete with both frosting
and a working flush.
The cake includes a tank full of blue piping gel to mimic water and tasty versions of the
various mechanisms used to make toilets functional.
Valastro even added a newspaper and toilet paper roll to the scene to make it more representative
of a real bathroom, which might, in turn, cause you to pass on dessert.
"Listen, I do some of my best thinking on the toilet bowl."
Although the team opted out of including edible feces in the dessert, biting into a toilet
seat only sounds marginally more appetizing.
Buddy Valastro cashed in on a diamond-studded wedding cake at a whopping $30 million, breaking
the record for the most expensive cake of all time.
While most of Valastro's cakes aren't cheap, prices fluctuate in the lower-thousands, this
one was a whole new kind of extravagant.
The bride insisted on adorning the cake with real diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and sapphires,
making much of the multi-layered cake inedible.
Valastro admits the cake was pretty plain before the expensive decorations were added.
He made a tiered vanilla cake with white frosting, and placed the jewels haphazardly into that
blank canvas.
Valastro claimed he wanted the gems to steal the show, but even diamonds lose their luster
when you start to think about the kind of person who is willing, and able, to spend
such an excessive sum of money on dessert.
"I'm a baker.
What am I doing with 30 million dollars in my truck?"
"Any time we've spoken about me making a birthday cake for you, what do you tell me you want?”
“A replica of me."
Apparently it wasn't Buddy Valastro's idea to render his wife in cake form, but he accepted
the challenge nonetheless, and that seems to be where the Cake Boss went wrong.
For Lisa's 30th birthday, Valastro sculpted her from fondant and modeling chocolate.
"I just want to share with you my vision of you."
He claims it's his prettiest cake, thanks to the beauty of his model, but the thought
of biting into a chunk of Lisa's arm ruins the sentimentality a little.
Standing upright at over five feet tall, the cake's frosted eyeballs seemed to follow Valastro's
party guests around the room.
Luckily, Lisa did not seem to notice, unless her excessive enthusiasm was merely hiding
her horror.
We wouldn't be surprised if that were the case.
But hey — it's the thought that counts...
Right?
When Ed, Buddy Valastro's party-planning customer, pitched a chandelier cake to him, Valastro's
first question was,
"Does it gotta hang?”
“Yeah, I mean, chandeliers hang, Buddy.”
“Cakes don't hang."
But soon enough, the Cake Boss team displayed an upside-down tiered cake covered with blown
sugar pieces and LED lights.
Sadly though, the chandelier cake was not long for this world.
As Valastro lowered his creation down to the ground so he could serve it to his guests,
it crashed to the floor.
"It just slipped right through my fingers."
Thankfully no one was hurt by one of the shards of blown sugar that splintered from the masterpiece
as it met its untimely end.
A spa in Hoboken, New Jersey, was holding an ugly foot contest, and Buddy Valastro was
hired to make dessert.
The cake could have depicted anything even vaguely related to pedicures, for example,
polish bottles, filing tools, even nail clippers.
It could have just been a regular frosted cake.
But in typical Cake Boss fashion, Valastro and his team dreamed up the most ridiculous
idea possible and put it on a cake.
The bakers carved two human feet: one before the pedicure and one after.
Even if the foot is sparkling clean, no one wants to see it on their dessert plate.
But wait, there's more.
This cake also featured, in gory detail, a pre-pedicured foot, complete with warts, yellowed
toenails, and cracked heels.
The fact that Carlo's Bakery was paid for this one is a feat in itself.
During a Halloween episode, Valastro's team was approached by a woman named Betty who
said she was a part of a crew of actual vampires.
"Me and my friends are vampires, and I'm going to become a vampire.
It's a really big event.
And I'm very excited, and I've been workin' up for five years, and they've finally accepted me."
Naturally she needed a life-sized coffin cake complete with a man inside.
You know, to symbolize a vampire's victim.
The clincher?
She wanted the cake man in the coffin to actually squirt blood when bitten.
The double clincher?
She wanted the man to look like Danny Dragone, one of Valastro's mustachioed bakers.
Because this is Cake Boss, the team took this odd request and ran with it, pulling off a
final cake that was honestly a little too realistic.
After delivering the cake to a cemetery in the dead of night, the team stood by and watched
in shock and awe as the vampires descended on the cake and drank the "blood," which thankfully
was just some sort of edible red liquid.
"I think we've seen enough.”
“Let's get the hell out of here."
Valastro was tasked with making a cake for a pumpkin carving company that specializes
in over-the-top carved pumpkins.
And in classic Cake Boss fashion, he took the theme and ran with it.
The words "jack-o'-lantern" usually conjure up images of cute triangle eyes and maybe
a toothy smile.
But at Carlo's Bakery, apparently, a jack-o'-lantern to them means "the most horrifying face you
can imagine carved into a pumpkin."
Using modeling chocolate and fondant, the team created an impressive — if disturbing
— cake, with lots of lifelike details that really did resemble the stringy, pulpy inside
of an actual pumpkin.
Unfortunately, the face they gave this jack-o'-lantern is so bizarre and, frankly, upsetting that
it's hard to imagine anyone feeling hungry after laying eyes on this baked beast.
If they were going for scary, they knocked it out of the park.
If they were going for appetizing ... pass.
While most of Buddy Valastro's wildest ideas become delicious works of art, the hearse
cake ended up looking more creepy than cool.
Valastro should have run for the hills as soon as his client said they had a special idea.
"You want a what?
A hearse?!
What are you, a putz?!"
Valastro and the team then got to work to commemorate the birthday of an undertaker.
This cake features a pink hearse driven by a chocolate version of the birthday girl.
The scenery surrounding the car is a strange combination of zebra stripes and psychedelic
flowers, making for a jarring aesthetic overall.
"I learned a long time ago, you always do whatever you can to make the client happy,
okay?
Maybe Mary didn't get the memo, but this is what they want, this is what they paid for."
While it was a thoughtful idea, some vocations simply aren't right for being depicted in
the frosted world of cakes… and an undertaker is certainly one of them.
Luckily, the birthday girl appreciated Valastro's work, but it's hard to imagine anyone else
enjoying biting into a corpse's preferred mode of transportation.
"You know, a lot of people were like, 'Oh, Buddy, why the hearse?
Why the hearse?'
I'm like 'She's an undertaker.'”
“Yes."
Some cakes aren't born bad, they just fall victim to their circumstances.
Such was the case with this cake, which was made to celebrate a girl named Lexi's sweet
16 party.
Valastro's vision for the cake was that each tier would tell a story about her life, from
a beach-themed bottom tier, to a fondant Starbucks cup, cityscape middle layer, and even a signature
Bloomingdale's shopping bag on top.
Unfortunately, Lexi's life wasn't the only story this cake would tell.
As it was transported down the stairs by Carlo's Bakery employees Danny and Cousin Anthony,
the cake fell victim to gravity, tumbling down the entire flight of stairs as onlookers
screamed, not to mention Buddy's sisters.
"What the hell happened?
*Gasps* My brother is gonna kill you.”
“You're telling me.”
“Buddy!”
“Are you alright?"
When Valastro saw what happened to his creation, things obviously got even worse.
"What did youse do?”
“It's f***g Danny's fault.”
“This is for today!”
“I told him I had to reposition my hand and he pushes the cake towards me.”
“Bring the thing inside!"
But amazingly, Buddy and his team managed to rebuild the cake in an hour and a half,
which means Lexi still got her cake and a truly sweet 16.
"He put in so many different things about me, personally, that it was just amazing.
The cake was great.”
“To see how happy that girl was, made my day."
Check out one of our newest videos right here!
Plus, even more Mashed videos about your favorite food shows are coming soon.
Subscribe to our YouTube channel and hit the bell so you don't miss a single one.