My Food Network Experience

 I thought I'd keep up with this blog as far as things I'm doing with my cakes and cupcakes, and if anyone is interested in placing an order they can go to my official site (link above) to see more pictures of cakes and cupcakes I've been making to sell plus pricing.
 The first part of February I went to Halifax to 'compete' in Recipe to Riches, this is a show put on by the Food Network and President's Choice and they are looking for the next PC Product. There was a list of catagories, and I thought I'd go big and make a special cake I make sometimes for our family for special occasions. Now it's an expensive cake to make so I don't make it to often. Anyway we arrived at a Halifax Hotel for 9:30am which is the time I was given and the place was packed! They were not expecting a big turnout and people just kept showing up, I was there for most of the day and got to see the t.v judges and everything. Now they didn't ask me to continue to Toronto (I didn't expect them to offer :) ) But it was definately an interesting experience, I've never been on a reality tv show before, and the whole day was really fun to be involved in. I had a lot of fun and met a lot of interesting people.

 Although I didn't get chosen to head to Toronto, I did get good reviews from all the judges, a lot of people came out crying and/or mad (I wasn't that invested in it, and really wasn't expecting to win this thing) but all the judges liked the cake I made and said that it would be great for a special event or gathering but that it was a little too involved to be remade into a PC Product (as it wasn't really suited for mass production, being that it contains fresh strawberries and would have to be made fresh). But I was happy with a good review from three chefs/critics.

This was the first layer of the cake (repeated three times) It's my deep dark chocolate cake recipe, the icing on the outside of the layers is my secret cream cheese icing recipe (not really a secret anymore since I had to submit the entire recipe to the food network :) ) filled with chocolate ganache and fresh strawberries. Oncve completed the cake looks like this:

So all in all it was a good day, I had a great experience that I will definately remember for a long time, one of the girls I waited with got a ticket (Go Carolyn!) and I had a lot of fun (and learned more than I wanted to know about reality television). My cake got glowing reviews, but was just a little too fancy and more than they were looking for (but I have a perfect simple recipe if I ever get the opportunity again), overall it was a worthwhile experience. Thank you Food Network!