After two consecutive episodes as part of the losing team in the Elimination Challenge on "Next Great Baker," Willow Glen bakery owner Jen Kwapinski found herself on the winning team in “Bunny Suits and BB Guns.” She and her randomly-assigned teammates Letty Alvarez and Peter Gray were tasked to create a four-foot high cake celebrating the spirit of "A Christmas Story" as a Broadway musical in just eight hours. Kwapinski explained the vision for their cake was to “create a representation of what the sets might look like on the stage for the Broadway musical.”
Host Buddy Valastro and guest judge Peter Billingsley appreciated that their cake, topped with a marquee for the show, depicted three different moments: a wall of presents, the dinner that the dogs ruin, and the leg lamp as a backstage prop. Valastro was disappointed in the sculpture of the turkey and that the cake needed to revolve in order to see each scene yet the bakers did not include a motor. Kwapinski demonstrated her commitment to teamwork on this cake when she asked Gray his thoughts on placing the fondant stripes on the presents to illustrate the opening of the gifts.
Earlier in the episode the teams completed a Baker’s Challenge that required each group to use specific ingredients in a dessert. Items ranged from dried figs and tomato soup to Hershey’s Milk Chocolate with Almonds Pieces and Reese’s Pieces, with Kwapinski’s team assigned fennel, bacon, and Reese’s Peanut Butter Cups. The trio decided to go with multiple desserts showcasing their flavors: tort, fudge, and bark. Though Valastro liked the tort most, he suggested that the bacon should have been cut into smaller pieces. The winning dessert for the baking challenge was Ashley Holt and Garrett Wallace’s chocolate cardamom cake, which utilized cardamom, Hershey’s Kisses, and butternut squash.
Catch Kwapinski on “Cake Boss: Next Great Baker” next Monday at 9pm ET/PT on TLC.
