- One cup of coconut milk, oh my.
- This is Eater Bakes,
where we take five Eater staffers
and pin them against each other
to see who can put together
the most visually stunning desserts.
There will be a panel of three judges,
but with no way for them to taste the dessert,
they will rely solely on the presentation,
your photos, and how the dessert actually looks.
Category is cake.
Make your best-looking and most eye-catching cake.
You will have three hours total
to achieve all of this while recording yourselves.
- I'm experiencing deep regrets about this already.
I think my recipe came after I Googled
cakes to bake at home without a stand mixer.
- I'm making something that I've never made before.
I'm extremely nervous about the challenge.
I may end up regretting this. (laughs)
- This particular recipe that I'm working on,
I've been testing.
I can tell you this, it looks pretty good.
That's all that matters,
because you're not gonna be able to eat it.
- I can't decorate a cake to save my life,
so I don't know why I'm here. (laughs)
But I think it's gonna be fun,
and it's gonna taste good for me here anyway.
- I usually make something that tastes delicious.
It may be lopsided.
I'm not great at piping and so, focusing on presentation
and looks is gonna be a challenge for me I think.
- Who do you think's your real competition here?
- I mean, I know what I'm doing
and I think it's gonna be pretty good actually.
If I actually do this recipe right,
I think it's gonna look pretty cool.
- I think when we first signed up for this,
I said "I hope Matt is not in my group."
- I fear all of you.
We have some serious, serious, competition.
Kang, you should just lean into
your full baking bro persona.
- I'm just going full in on villain.
- What would a villain do?
- Be better than everyone else.
- I would just like to point out that we all work at Eater,
and Eater has people that like to eat out at restaurants.
(laughing)
We like to have things made for us. (laughs)
- [Dan] All right, on that note, let's get baking!
- The recipe I'm gonna make today
is a twist on a pineapple upside-down cake.
I incorporate some more mai tai-type elements,
so it has a little rum in the toppings,
it is the closest thing I can get to a vacation right now.
- I will be making Maialino's Olive Oil Cake.
I truly believe that the best types of cakes
are the simplest ones and this is the type of thing
that would catch my eye at a restaurant
and what I would order immediately.
- I'm gonna be making Boston Cream Pie,
it's gonna be a tribute to Boston history,
as well as three local pastry titans that I really respect.
The base recipe that I'm using
is from Joanne Chang's cookbook Flour, Too.
The filling is a pastry cream mixed with a whipped cream
and then it's topped with a chocolate ganache
and I'm also gonna be doing a
passion fruit caramel popcorn garnish on the whole thing.
- So, let me tell you a little bit about the recipe.
It is a southern-style coconut carrot cake.
I think coconut's gonna be the main sort of
flavor profile of this cake,
with carrot sort of taking sort of a backseat.
- I'm going to be making a pavlova.
My husband loves it, it's something
my mother-in-law has been making since he was little.
- And away
we
go.
- Eight ounces of cream cheese.
- I think this has garlic in it. (laughs)
- I'm always scared that I'm gonna
take my fingertips off doing this
and I won't be able to type anymore.
Probably qualify for workers' comp.
- Okay, it's not garlic, it's ginger, don't worry.
- [Tanay] I'm going to slice up some berries
that are going to be the decoration for the pavlova.
- 400 grams of flour.
- Time to crack three eggs in here,
which sounds easy, right?
- Oh my god, no!
One of those just has a little yolk in there,
that's fine, I'll fish 'em out.
- Did a shell get in there, I don't know.
- Hopefully it works. (groans)
I don't see a drop of yellow in here, I should be fine.
- Look at that, look at that beautiful yolk.
See, I can separate eggs.
- So I'm gonna start beating the egg whites
so they can form soft peaks,
not stiff peaks, but soft peaks.
- Okay, this is actually...
(pants)
- Oh, yeah, look at that, that is very thick
and it feels very pasty, I would say.
- Carrots.
(upbeat music)
Looks like a pretty darn good batter.
- My assistant is helping me clean my tools.
- Yeah. (laughs)
Looks all right.
- A few,
and then one from...
Woo!
That's good and it goes really good.
Artfully arranged, you are.
Pineapple bits.
(Lesley sings)
- [Milly] And it looks to be folding very nicely.
- You guys, if you could smell it in here,
it smells so good.
- That's what it's looking like.
Oh. (beep)
(laughs)
That was close.
- [Dan] Now it's time to throw the cakes in the oven.
Good luck, contestants!
- [Lesley] In it goes to my disgusting oven.
- [Milly] In she goes.
- I just realized I forgot to put the vanilla in the cake.
(groans)
- [Matthew] Are you hungry?
- So, here's my very first pavlova.
- It looks good all the way through.
- Check it out, are you serious?
- Look at that, there you go.
- [Lesley] One, two, three.
- Oh.
(Lesley yells)
- The middle pineapple came off!
- Ha-ha!
Oh yeah, this part's super satisfying.
Oh, it smells so good.
- [Lesley] Crucial center pineapple here,
no one will ever know.
Beautiful, it's perfect, it couldn't be better.
- This is the most beautiful thing that has ever lived.
And like all good things, it has a few imperfections,
it sort of looks like it's
toppling over itself a little bit.
- [Rachel] I mean, you're not here to taste this,
so you're gonna have to take my word for it, I guess.
- Man, did I...
Wonder if I screwed something up.
Damn, that is very thin.
Should I have baked it more?
- So, this is my heavy cream,
which I'm guessing I over-whipped.
I'm gonna just kinda mix it up and see what happens
and then add the pastry cream to it
and hope everything ends up okay.
- [Tanay] No, it sunk!
- [Lesley] Ta-da!
Okay, that's pretty.
- I can't actually believe my eyes.
(gasps)
Yeah, I f***** it up.
(laughs)
- All right, looking good.
Ooh.
Okay.
This is my share.
- People hate these, they add color, eat them or don't.
Ta-da!
Pretty much done.
- This is the moment of truth,
this is when I'm gonna be decorating my cake.
Toasted coconut first.
(peaceful music)
- Well, it's something.
I think it will taste good.
- Time to put on the carrots, this is the final part.
It's beautiful.
Love the contrast of the color.
- Voila!
Here is a rather messy-looking pavlova
that sunk considerably after I topped it with all the cream.
- Well, it was supposed to be a little E.
But it still looks pretty bloody good.
- [Dan] With all our cakes finished,
let's see how our contestants feel about their creations.
- Well, here's my mai tai.
I think I need one.
The crumb of the cake is really good.
Mm.
Honestly, look at that.
- It's so good.
Look how moist that is on the inside.
Bloody perfect.
I'm stoked.
- For everything that went wrong in this process,
that was really good and I'm proud of myself.
- It obviously didn't turn out as well as I wanted
because of the way it sank, but I really love this dessert.
- It's delicious, it's really freaking good.
This is, to me, this is what
a coconut carrot cake should be.
It's got that beautiful yellow tint.
- It's pineapple, spongy, it's rummy,
I'm gonna get drunk.
- This went better than I had hoped.
Not perfectly by any means.
It's a good cake.
I'm excited to eat more of it and I'm excited to bake more.
- If somebody else wins,
it's because they cannot taste this,
this is amazing.
- I'm a baker now.
(fast-paced music) - We have come to the
judgment component of the contest
and it is time to meet our judges.
Judge number one, pour very own Editor-in-Chief,
Amanda Kludt!
- Hey, everybody!
I'm so impressed with all the work you did,
so great to see you all.
- And judge number two, our very own Restaurant Editor,
Hillary Dixler Canavan!
- Hi, everybody!
I am very excited about this category.
- And our final judge, she is fluent in babka
and she is a 2019 Eater Young Gun,
expert baker, Zoe Kanan.
- Hey, cake-bakers, nice to see you guys.
- Now is the moment that you've been waiting for,
we are going to announce our winners.
In fifth place is the olive oil cake
from Milly McGuinness.
- (laughs) Yes!
I'm so proud.
(laughing)
I just wanted to make the top five.
- It looked really appetizing,
your crumb definitely looked moist and tender
and I would happily eat a slice of your olive oil cake.
The ambition level was pretty low.
(Dan laughs)
Olive oil cake is pretty basic.
- We noted a little bit of sinkage
in the center of the cake,
which I think pointed to some technical difficulties.
- Milly, do you have any,
would you like to respond to the judges at all?
- What a bunch of bulls***.
(laughs)
Any cake is an ambitious cake for me. (laughs)
- We are moving on to the fourth place cake.
In fourth place
was the carrot coconut cake by Matthew Kang.
- What?
- Big points for creativity,
because Matthew did not make a super spicy carrot cake,
it was coconut forward.
It looked beautiful but the level of ambition, again,
was not as high as some of the other contestants.
- And then I think we were also thrown off
by the shredded carrot topping.
That, I will say, was something that the judges
did not find totally appealing as a concept.
- I'm sorry, I'm just really stunned,
I put so much work into this.
I think I'm just gonna have an entire vat of
some Korean food or Korean ramen and just crush it--
- Just covered in shredded carrots?
- No. (sighs) (laughing)
I think it looks weirder than how it tastes,
it doesn't really dominate the flavor.
- Where do you typically like to eat your coleslaw?
- Please move on, please.
- In third place,
the pavlova from Tanay.
- We thought that you really nailed the texture.
We weren't sure that a pavlova really qualifies as a cake.
- It looks delicious,
this is one of my top that I would wanna order.
Gorgeous, gorgeous work.
- Honestly, I'm genuinely shocked I'm not in fifth place.
I really wanted to do a new technical challenge,
the bake-off gave me a good excuse to try it.
- Sounds like you're a winner to me then.
(Tanay laughs)
- We would like to hear from the judges a little bit
about the top two cakes.
Hillary, could we hear about
the mai tai pineapple upside-down cake?
- What really appealed to me about this cake
was the retro, '70s vibe of it.
I loved the presentation on the Monstera leaves.
Also, the texture was really impressive.
- I think this is a really creative take
on a more traditional kind of cake
and maybe you've had pineapple upside-down cake before
but never with these mai tai flavors.
- Bonus points for booze in the cake, always.
The Boston Cream Pie Cake I think we found to be
the most ambitious cake of the group.
It was the most components attempted.
- I'm just gonna say, I love this cake.
The number of techniques in there,
you have all these different layers,
you have the ganache on top, super shiny.
I think it could work, sounds delicious, looks delicious.
- I love passion fruit and I love chocolate
and I think those things go great together.
I do not understand the world
in which popcorn is invited into that party.
- Rachel, what do you have to say
about the controversial popcorn?
- It didn't occur to me to be worried about the popcorn.
I promise it tasted really good. (laughs)
- Awesome.
- I'll make it for you if you ever come back out here.
- If I'm ever allowed to leave my home!
- It is time to reveal the winner
of Eater Bakes: Cake Edition.
And the winner is
Lesley Suter.
- Yay!
- With the mai tai pineapple upside-down cake.
- I have to say, I loved this cake
and I invented it myself and it makes me really happy.
- Yay!
Yeah, we thought it looked so tempting,
we loved the decoration and the crumb just looked
so buttery and delicious, it was making my mouth water.
- Yay, guys, hopefully one of these days,
we'll get to all eat each other's stuff.
- I'm never making cake again.
(laughing)