Rebecca!! With a dry cake!? Stop. This championship was stolen from Yashimabet!
Her cake was alright, but she was correct when she said that they chose 'her'. Because they definitely picked Rebecca and not Rebecca's cake.
"Do you even remember what you came here to find?"
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So did Yashimabet. The judges said they were very close. So their baking history wasn't really the focal point.
I don't think making two different kinds of cake is 'taking the easy way out'. It's very competitive AND they were good, she should have won. The only 'bad' thing they said about Yashimabet's presentation is that the tent was too small.
So what about Rebecca's dry and 'ambitious' (because that's what they kept calling it. they never said 'wow! this is amazing'. They just kept calling it 'ambitious') cake put her over the top of Yashimabet?
"Do you even remember what you came here to find?"
The tent being too small was not the only critique they had. Do you recall the fondant work? That was a big mess. I loved Yashimabet and I would've been happy if she had won, but the overall appearance was just not good enough.
shareOnce I watched the entire finale, I was again confused by the judges (same as with them saying good things about Peggy but negative things about Yeshimabet and Matthew but still eliminating Peggy anyway). When they tasted Rebecca's cake, they both liked it and Duff said her lemon chiffon cake was perfect but then Valerie said it was dry. Since we don't have the luxury of tasting the dishes, it sure would be nice (for future competitions) if the judges could at least be on the same page as to the texture of a cake. They can certainly disagree about the overall look of a dish but "perfect" and "dry" are two entirely different things.
Based on what I saw last night, I agree that they picked the right winner. I was surprised that Yeshimabet and Matthew didn't make bigger cakes considering that everything was on the line. They had 5 hours, which should have been more than enough time to bake and decorate a bigger cake than the 2-tiered ones they did. Rebecca took a risk by doing three 4-layer cakes and even though hers had some issues too, she was smart to go all-out in the final.
That's why I like 3 judges, so it's not 50-50.
Rebecca may have had a dry cake but Yashimabet had an undercooked cake. And Yashimabet's cake was pretty simple compared to Rebecca's. Having said that, I still preferred Yashimabet's cake. Valerie also seemed to like it better than Rebecca's. Maybe they picked Rebecca since she did better consistently throughout the competition. I would've been happy with any of the 3 winning. They all seem like really nice kids.
shareI haven't had a chance to watch the whole show yet but I did see each of the 3 cakes, however I didn't hear all of the critiques. Based strictly on looks, I was impressed by Rebecca's more than the others because hers was bigger and had more decoration. I thought Matthew's looked sloppy and not very impressive for having 5 hours but there's probably a lot I missed in between.
I can't help but wonder how Peggy would have done if she hadn't been robbed... er, eliminated last week.
Matthew was the one who surprised me the most I think, and not in a good way. I realize he’s just a kid, but he shot himself in the foot right off in poor planning I thought. It shouldn’t take more than 5 minutes before that little bell goes off between your ears, signaling, “Whoops, hang on. This roller coaster idea isn’t going to work.” Doesn’t mean he wouldn’t ultimately do anything different than he did, but he’d at least have had more time along the way to plan each step so as to execute flawlessly.
I give him credit in that he swung for the fences, but the only thing he really ended up doing was killing a squirrel 2 miles from the stadium with that line drive.
When Mathew picked his category the first thing I thought of was funnel cake! That could have been incredibly creative, one on top of the other - etc. As it was his was sloppy and just not up to his good work in the past.
The other cake fell and, for me did not look all that appetizing -- although I too like her campfire flame.
Honestly, I think Rebecca did the best job. She incorporated everything she should and, for me, her cake looked very tasty! Now, I hope she gets to go buy her chickens!
I hate to think how many chickens $25,000 would buy!
But yeah... The irony is Matthew thought he was being so sly by assigning Rebecca the beach theme, when all he did was hand her the win.
I agree about Yashimabet's cake, too - although I'm not a great fan of Chai-flavored anything.
I figured it went down like:
Rebecca: Credit for design, credit for difficulty of design. Average taste, average difficulty for taste. She had best looking cake with the most risk taken by making a large multi-element cake. Her only drawback here was the cake tiers were all the same size. Her sand idea Duff said he would steal. The overall design execution was by far the best. For example, her fondant work was great whereas Matthew and Yahshimabet struggled there. Her cake taste was average as Duff liked it but Valerie said it was dry.
Yahshimabet: Credit for taste, credit for difficulty of taste. Average design, average difficulty for design. Her cake tasted by far the best. She made two different types of cake which amped up the difficulty. Valerie gushed over it. Her only taste drawback was the cake sank Duff attributed to undercooking. Her presentation was a problem where the fondant had a hole and cracks. The tent and fire were same size. It was a simple design; there wasn't alot there and Valerie mentioned some trees would be nice.
So the tiebreaker would have been the mandatory curd. Yahshimabet completely failed here and Rebecca was average giving two different curds, lemon and strawberry. Yahshimabet's curd never solidified and to fix, she mixed with white chocolate which overwhelmed the taste of the curd. Duff was ok with the amount and taste of Rebecca's curd, Valerie not so much.
Matthew was a distant 3rd.
But he was the youngest of the three. The oldest of course won.
Doesn't seem fair that Peggy and Matthew had to compete against Rebecca and Yahshimabet.
Rebecca: Credit for design, credit for difficulty of design. Average taste, average difficulty for taste. She had best looking cake with the most risk taken by making a large multi-element cake. Her only drawback here was the cake tiers were all the same size. Her sand idea Duff said he would steal. The overall design execution was by far the best. For example, her fondant work was great whereas Matthew and Yahshimabet struggled there. Her cake taste was average as Duff liked it but Valerie said it was dry.
Since Rebecca took just about every cake pan in the place, it looks like she would have used different size cake tiers. She used all the average size cake pans because she knew Matthew wanted a few of them. I didn't like her attitude of "If he wanted them, he should have got there first".
Just watched this over the weekend. I thought they robbed Yashimabet. The judges both said her cakes were moist and the flavor was unbelievable. They also liked her design, even with the cracks in the fondant. So what the tent was too small? The complex blend of spices she used, even left me impressed, and I couldn't taste it!
Rebecca's cake was a mess, although, not as bad as Matthew's. Her hogging practically ALL the cake pans, also showed poor sportsmanship. Not to mention poor execution. Why hog all those pans, of different sizes, and just build a tower?? I never liked her. She was way too cocky and smart alecky, from day one.
I think Yasemiabet should have won the competition. She had the best looking and best tasting cake of the 3. She was robbed in my opinion...
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