Cupcake War is Hell

I can’t believe I just sat through an hour of Cupcake Wars on FoodTV.  What a terrible show.

I actually quite enjoy a good cupcake – though there are way more bad ones out there than good ones. Take for example, the bubblegum cupcake offered locally by American Cupcake. Granted, I haven’t tried it – but I don’t have to…  The very concept is vomitous.  And don’t get me started on Citizen Cake… If you want an excellent cupcake, head to Miette. They are tender, delicious, never too sweet, an excellent frosting-to-cake ratio and just the right size. But I digress…

So, this terrible show’s premise is that four teams of annoying people make cupcakes for three equally annoying judges, all of it hosted by some other annoying individual. Tonight’s “theme” was “sexy” cupcakes using “aphrodisiacs” (e.g. chocolate, champagne, spices – yawn…) for ingredients.

The potentially interesting part of the show, i.e. the actual preparation of the cupcakes, is simply ignored, in typical FoodTV fashion. The “entertainment” part of the show is the running around in the kitchens while the clock ticks down in each timed round.

One of today’s contestants was a not-overly-sanctimonious (though obviously still annoying) vegan chef. I was actually curious as to how she prepared her winning cupcakes without the use of butter, cream or eggs – but no mention of that. Just frenzied rushing back and forth from mixer to oven.

In the final round, the two remaining teams had to prepare 1000 cupcakes and create a “sexy” cupcake display to be set up in a “sexy” nightclub, filled with “sexy” Hollywood industry types (i.e. car parkers and shop girls).

Chef Vegan had a Plexiglas tower of shelves, with fake flames in the center, the cupcakes served in cheap-ass plastic champagne and martini glasses – the whole monstrosity was flanked by two hideous wooden silhouettes of “sexy” singles. It was awful.

But even worse was her competitor! She used a bed as the platform for her cupcakes. Yes, an actual bed, made up with all of that foul burgundy-and-goldenrod betasseled and brocaded faux-luxurious bedding so popular at Ross and TJ Maxx…  And then covered the bed with cupcakes. Seriously, cupcakes sitting directly on the bedding!

You should’ve heard me screaming at the TV. “So what three flavors of cupcakes are you serving? Pubic hair, dandruff and body lice? And if you’re going to use a bed, why not be really authentic and put a cat licking its ass in the middle of the bed amidst all the cupcakes? Maybe shine an ultra-violet light on the cupcakes to reveal any extra ‘ingredients’? And shouldn’t they be ‘cream-filled,’ if you know what I mean..? Also, I am going to vomit.” I don’t care if that bed had just rolled off the assembly line – the very idea of eating cupcakes served on a bed in a nightclub is gag-inducing.

So, to sum up, I did not care for this TV program.