'Bake It' challenges local cake makers

Grove City entrepreneurs Sue and Gary Baisden have won a number of awards with their Capital City Cakes business.

Whether they have received another will be revealed with the airing of the “Bake It Like Buddy” television show scheduled to air at 9:30 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 20, on the Discovery Family Channel.

When it airs, “it’s going to be like, ‘whooo,’ we can finally talk about it,” Gary Baisden said as he wiped his hand across his brow.

The show’s time is subject to change, he said.

The Baisdens traveled last February to Hoboken, New Jersey, to film the episode.

“Bake It Like Buddy” features celebrity chef Buddy Valastro, who previously appeared in the “Cake Boss” series that featured his business, Carlo’s Bakery in Hoboken. In each episode of “Bake It Like Buddy,” two baking family duos compete in a challenge Valastro chooses. Valastro and members of his bakery team then select a winner.

Contestants are required to stay mum about their competition. The Baisdens said they weren’t even able to discuss the nature of the challenge completed in their episode.

After the challenge is presented, participating teams have four hours to design, bake and decorate a cake.

“We really had to concentrate to get what we wanted to do finished in just four hours,” Gary Baisden said. “You’re feeling like you’re getting down to ‘five, four, three, two, one’ a lot sooner than you really are.”

“It helps that we make such a good team together,” Sue Baisden said. “We complement each other.”

His wife is the baker in the family, Gary Baisden said.

Sue Baisden worked 20 years in the bakery department at the Big Bear store in Lincoln Village before it closed in 1998.

“My dream was always to own my own bakery,” she said.

Cakes are the focal point at Capital City Cakes, 4009 Broadway, Grove City, but such treats as cookies, brownies, cake pops, baklava, cannoli and cupcakes also are available.

Although Sue Baisden said she enjoys the creativity of designing and decorating cakes, she gets the most pleasure from helping people celebrate an important event.

“Whether it’s a birthday, an anniversary, a graduation or a wedding, people want to mark that occasion with a special cake,” she said. “When I see that smile on their face when we show them their cake, that’s what it’s all about.”

The Baisdens opened Capital City Cakes in 2009 at 3018 E. Broad St. in Bexley.

“We always wanted to be able to move our business into Grove City, our hometown,” Sue Baisden said.

That opportunity came in 2011 when the Graeter’s Ice Cream store on Broadway in Grove City’s Town Center closed and the building was up for lease.

Since then, Capital City Cakes has won honors, such as the People’s Choice Cake at the 2015 Ohio State Fair and the Grove City Area Chamber of Commerce Business of the Year in 2017.

Gary Baisden retired two years ago as a mechanic to work with his wife in the cake business.

The couple previously interviewed for possible appearances on such baking competition shows as “Halloween Wars” and “Cake Wars,” but “the timing was never right,” Gary Baisden said.

Last October, the company that produces “Bake It Like Buddy,” which premiered in fall 2018, contacted the Baisdens.

“It was so exciting for us because we’re big fans of Buddy Valastro and watched ‘Cake Boss’ all the time,” Sue Baisden said.

The family spirit of the “Bake It Like Buddy” show is evident on and off camera, Gary Baisden said.

Valastro and his family offered support and baking tips to the competitors, he said.

“They were so welcoming and supportive,” he said. “It was such a confidence builder when Buddy would come up and tell us we were doing a good job and he liked what we were trying to do.”

Having a multitude of cameras watching everything quickly went from a distraction to the background, Sue Baisden said.

“You’re concentrating so much on getting everything done in four hours, you really forget about the cameras,” she said.

afroman@thisweeknews.com

@ThisWeekAfroman

Let's block ads! (Why?)