Wedding Cake Championship review: Love in the modern age

In this week’s Wedding Cake Championship review, the baking duos used some creative interpretation to capture the love of these two brides.

With half the season completed, this week’s Wedding Cake Championship found inspiration from love in the modern age. As people look for new and different ways to set their weddings apart from others, bakers need to keep up with the times. Did these baking duos find a way to balance the modern with the traditional?

After last week’s non-elimination due to one baking duo leaving because of a personal issue, the four remaining duos needed to impress in this week’s challenges. With the title within reach, any small mistake could send a baking duo home.

For the cake topper challenge, the theme was definitely the modern way many people find their soul mate. Who hasn’t swiped right or clicked a profile in hopes of finding their true love?

With online dating as a theme, the baking duos needed to be a little creative with this cake topper challenge. Although everyone is connected to their smartphones, a big screen isn’t necessarily the most appealing visual.

Overall, all the cake toppers were quite lovely. While some cake toppers focused on characters, each one offered a take on love in the modern age. Although online dating might not have been the obvious theme, love was in the air.

The winning cake topper came from Cara and Dana. Their cake topper blended the modern and the vintage. Within the baroque frame, the screens featuring a bride and groom was smart, impactful and a wonderful interpretation of the theme.

Their advantage from winning the cake topper challenge was a special ingredient that no other baking duo could use. This advantage could either set them up for the win or cause them to go home.

In the wedding cake challenge, the baking duos had to create a wedding cake for Stephanie and Stephanie, who met online. The couple had a couple of special requests. They wanted to incorporate some of their wedding colors, succulents, an aspect of antiquing and steampunk. It was a rather tall order.

Also, the couple wanted the cake flavor to feature chocolate and peanut butter. Lastly, they wanted a surprise flavor element. With no additionally guidance, that surprise element proved to be quite tricky. Was the baking duos’ idea of a tasty surprise element the same as the couple’s idea?

Looking at the designs of the cakes, all four wedding cakes were quite impressive. The attention to detail was spot on. While the judges might have preferred some different color choices or a few cleaner details, all the cakes were worthy of Wedding Cake Championship.

In this challenge, Cara and Dana used their advantage wisely. By choosing the honeycomb chocolates, that element added both flavor and texture to the wedding cake. It was a lovely surprise in each bite. This choice, in addition to their impeccable wedding cake design, earned them praise.

While personally, I thought that their wedding cake deserved to be crowned the winner, the judges didn’t choose this wedding cake as their top choice. There was some debate over the cake leaning slightly and the use of the hat as the topper.

In some ways, the downside to this particular display was that it lacked a bold punch of color. While the succulents seemed to pop, the rest of the cake was quite neutral. If the wedding cake had a little more lushness, it could have been the winning wedding cake.

Contestant Shelby Bower and judges Kimberly Bailey, Randy Fenoli, and Maneet Chauhan during the Cake Round, as seen on Wedding Cake Championship, Season 2. photo provided by Food Network

The baking duo winning this week’s Wedding Cake Championship was Robin and Shelby, which was slightly surprising. This baking duo impressed the judges with impeccable visuals. The antique book was hands down the best decoration so far on this season.

But, the wedding cake wasn’t flawless. The antique trunk’s color was a little off and the green colors for the succulents was a tad too bright. Still, the visual for a wedding cake was stunning.

The biggest question in them winning this week’s challenge was the cake’s flavor. While the chocolate and the peanut butter was nice, the jelly filling was a big miss. The judges and the couple didn’t like the jelly filling. It was definitely a surprise that they wouldn’t want again.

Given the miss on the flavor, it was unusual that they were this week’s winners. Given Cara and Dana wowing with the flavor and having a nice visual, it would have seemed that they could have racked up another win.

In any case, both Cara and Dana and Robin and Shelby move onto the finals. Either of these baking duos could earn the title. It will be interesting to see how they interpret the finale theme.

As for the other two baking duos, both teams seemed to struggle. In a nice twist, Hemu and Ida produced a visually delightful cake. Their design finally came together in the wedding cake challenge. After nearly going home last week, they greatly redeemed themselves.

While the visuals improved, their wedding cake had a flavor mistake. A layer of plain peanut butter was a poor choice. It brought the whole experience down.

With Ebonie and Courtney, they took a big risk, which didn’t pay off. They decided to make a chocolate mint cake and totally omitted the peanut butter. Although the couple asked for a surprise, totally leaving out a major flavor component wasn’t a smart idea.

It wasn’t clear if Ebonie and Courtney just didn’t want to make this flavor combination or they didn’t know how to balance the flavor. Sure, a chocolate and mint cake, which they did well, is impressive, it isn’t what the client wanted.

As for their decoration, it was different from the other teams. The focus was more on a corset than on steampunk, succulents or antiquing. Plus, the use of the purple drape was a big no from one of the judges.

In the end, Ebonie and Courtney were eliminated from this week’s Wedding Cake Championship. Maybe if they had made a chocolate peanut butter cake, they would have made the finale.

What did you think of this week’s episode? Who do you think has the best chance to win this season’s Wedding Cake Championship?