i watch this show to laugh at how bad the cakes look. i always watch the food network cake competion shows and they are so much better than theirs. then i watched cake boss and theirs are soooooooooooooo much better too. why do these boring idiots have a show? duff is a douche who tries to hard to be cool because he is a baker and doesnt want people to think he is a wuss and their cakes look awful. i cant believe people pay 800 for the cheapest one.

Duff sucks and I cannot stand his gal Friday. Mike McCarey was the money man in the cake challenges. He should have gotten a show instead of Duff.

I think the cakes are pretty good. But I don't find the show at that interesting.

Duff can definitely get grating, but Geof's pretty funny and Elena and Ana are cute, so it's not the worst thing on Food Network. Some of the cakes look cool, but there's no way they'd be worth $800.

On an upcoming John and Kate, Duff actually stops by. I imagine combining marital strife with him is gonna be an awkward disaster.

$800 (and more) is ridiculous for something that will be eaten and gone. So the cakes are for the rich or for the special occasions held by organizations.

I like the way his cakes look and think he is worthy of a Food Network show. But my local bias prefers the two girls from Chicago when it comes to those cake challenges - http://www.thecakegirls.com

If one of their cakes you order from Charm City cakes makes it on the show, do you get it for free or at least a discount?

I saw the commerical for this episode, and Kate is hollering at Duff, so maybe he will stuff her into an oven, and shut her up.

I think this are pretty good and can even be considered a work of art. By the way, cakes are expensive. A lot a simple wedding cakes go for at least $500. Here are some samples of the Ace of Cakes designs:

Some of those are pretty cool. I wonder though how much of them are actually edible?

I watched a few episodes but just wasn't that interested. I guess I'm just not a 'Reality Show' fan. Just like those automobile design shows on TLC. I'm more interested in the actual construction than I am the drama of the week.

That's not saying much anymore, given some of the people to whom Food Network has given shows.

Same here.

I've seen them literally cover styrofoam and ply wood in fondant and call it a "cake."

I'd call it "bullshit."

I saw the extreme cake challenge, and was wondering what the point was. If 90% of the cake isn't edible, why bother?

I thought theirs (Ace of Cakes) were entirely edible.

I thought I was alone in this. I am a big fan of Mike McCarey and Mary Maher (the lady who won $50K as the "Best Cake Artist in America”). The other artists are hit or miss, but Duff's attitude sucks. I saw him on the mystery cake challenge where the theme ended up being sports and he lollygagged and played the entire time, then his cake collapsed and we was like 'oh, well'. I'm not that amazed by his cakes, especially when compared to others who compete.

The one issue I have with all of those cakes are the fondant. It drives me crazy thinking that the artist's hands have touched every square inch of that cake. Just buy me a white cake from Sam's Club and I'll be just fine :-)

I've heard that fondant actually tastes pretty bad, but cake designers like it because it looks good and is still technically edible.

I like this show, Duff is a bit overly proud about some of his achievements but it's still a fun waste of time.

Some cakes look fantastic, some don't. Most of the cakes need to feed like 50 to 100 people, you aren't going to have a massive cake creation and have it be all cake for less than a thousand people.

Nobody eats those "cakes". They're fondant and stuctural support with a little cake thrown in to technically call it that.

And yeah, fondant is basically edible clay, and tastes like it. Nobody who knows anything about it would actually eat it. Calling these things cakes is baloney. They're fine artists, but they're sculptors, not bakers.

my wife made from mashmellow fondant that actually didnt taste as bad as the regular fondant but it still molds like clay. there is also some way to add vanilla to regular fondant to make it taste a little better.

I'd rather eat a cake sprayed with horse cum than fondant.

Talking from experience?

at the horse cum comment.

Never tasted fondant. Do bakers use that only on expensive cakes?

Another thing that's unappealing about cakes with fondant is the way the cake looks once the fondant is removed, especially if it's an oddly-shaped cake. the layers tend to look like construction materials (brick and mortar)instead of cake. I agree with Numanoid, I would consider these sculptures instead of food.

No -- just ones where taste is far less important than presentation. I've been subjected to more than a few wedding cakes with this foul garbage on it. I think the word got out, though -- that seemed to be more a late-90s/early-2000s phenomenon for whatever reason.

Most of these cakes aren't edible, as explained above. They've only showed it a few times on the show but they are almost always accompanied by a plain ol' sheet cake that is actually served to guests. I started to watch it to get decorating ideas as I bake cakes for a living (for dogs, not for people) and was disappointed that all the 'cool' stuff to make cakes look great is pretty much inedible and would definitely fall into the 'not safe for dogs' list of ingredients.

If its not cake then what is the point? You cant eat it, so just hire some "artist" to make you a mario statue out of styrofoam, plonk it on a table and set a sheet cake beside it.

Save yourself 800 dollars.