When the Cake Boss shows up, you have lost before the round begins.
Buddy Valastro has been making cakes professionally since he was a child working in his father's Hoboken bakery. Carlo's Bakery, which his family bought in 1964 and Buddy now runs, is on Washington Street and is on every New Jersey tourist's itinerary for a reason. He has done two TLC shows, opened ten locations, and survived a 2020 accident that required five surgeries to save his hand.
He brought a multi-layered cake — the Carlo's house style, which is a buttery yellow cake stacked with cream and finished with a high-shine ganache. Bobby brought a pastry. The pastry, per one judge, was "trying." That was the entire critique. The cake was not trying. It was.