Top Chef Tidbits - Out To Lunch With Angelo!

Well, Not Exactly - Actually, It Was Out To Lunch AT Angelo's

Angelo has been doing amazingly well on Top Chef. He won three out of the four challenges in the first 2 episodes. ( I haven't seen tonight's episode yet.)

He mentioned, during the Quickfire in Episode 2, that he would have to close down his sandwich shop if he didn’t win the sandwich challenge. Even tied to his partner and using only one hand, Angelo (and Tracey) triumphed with a sandwich of Flounder Marinated in Fish Sauce, Spicy Sriracha Mayo, Pickled Red Onions & Herbaceous Salad.

I admit I was a little confused about why a sandwich shop owner was on Top Chef or why a top chef owned a sandwich shop. His Bravo bio doesn’t help matters. He worked for Jean-Georges Vongerichten and was “invited” by Ducasse to create a “a special seasonal” menu at one of his casual Parisian restaurants. Yeah, so why the sandwich shop?

I know that various chefs are involved in lots of different projects – roaming restaurants, food trucks, whatever, but that’s usually in addition to a more traditional restaurant. His own website covers his rather extensive experience pretty well, so I guess he just loves sandwiches with an Asian twist.

I was curious to see if Xie Xie, Angelo’s sandwich “project”, was praise and brag-worthy. Xie Xie (pronounced shay-shay) is Mandarin for thank you. What that has to do with the price of eggs, I’m not sure.

On a recent, absolutely steamy, day in New York, I headed over to 45th and Ninth to meet a friend for a look-see and a must-taste.

The shop has a Pinkberry vibe about it. I like its clean modern interior.

Okay, down to the food. The bad news first. Only four out of the five sandwiches on the menu were available that day! BUT I don’t even remember which one was sold out, because we weren’t planning to order that one anyway.

More bad news. They were out of the “1000 Year Old” Ice Cream Sandwich and the gentleman in charge (not Angelo, he wasn’t there) wasn’t terribly apologetic or actually all that charming to begin with.

On to the good news. The first sandwich we had was the one that Angelo made on the Quickfire Challenge. In the shop, they used tilapia instead of flounder. It was called Fish Cha Ca La Vong with Onion Jam, Sriracha Mayonnaise and Dill.

What a sandwich! Each element was perfect. The bread was crusty and seemed just baked. The fish was flaky and moist. The tons of dill and parsley gave a wonderful freshness. The onion jam was sweet and concentrated and the Sriracha Mayo left a nice spicy taste on the tongue. All together, it made a wow of a sandwich! Plus it was very original. I’ve never had anything like it.

The second (and last) sandwich we sampled was the Asian Lobster Roll with Kewpie Mayo, Tarragon and Crispy Shallots.

Kewpie or Japanese Mayonnaise (was) first made in Japan in 1925 and…is yellower, richer and more creamy than the standard American or European mayonnaise. Made with rice vinegar, instead of distilled vinegar makes it especially complimentary to Japanese cuisine.

This was a super-mayonnaise-y (which is heaven to me) mixture of lobster and tarragon served on a soft (maybe a tiny bit sweet?) roll. It was jam-packed with lobster and really, really tasty. But I’ve had lobster salad before, so it was the other one that was really revolutionary.

I will definitely go back and try the other three sandwiches. Hopefully, next time, the 1000 year ice cream sandwich won’t be extinct.

You may be able to taste Angelo’s sandwiches at a shop near you. He hopes to open 11 more in the next few years. If he wins Top Chef, maybe there will be one on every street corner.

An Aria In The Kitchen

Remember that horrible Italian cooking show with David Rocco that I told you about on The Cooking Channel?

"I had no idea what a throwback was waiting for me until I watched Rocco’s La Dolce Vita. OMG!

…I KNOW it was filmed in 2004, but it felt like it was from the 70’s.

...I have no idea who this David Rocco is. I only know what I see – super skinny, small-framed, slicked-back compromised hairline, fluent in Italian, with lots of “zany” friends…

I haven’t told you the worst. Throughout the ENTIRE show is this 70’s, actually 60’s maybe, even FIFTIES, Italian music with vocals by what must be the Italian version of Andy Williams."

In contrast to that, my buddy Tom just sent me this charming video:

Now if THIS guy ever decides to leave his day job, he should have his own show on the Cooking Channel. AND they should leave it completely in Italian. I could watch him juggling tomatoes or, of course, listen to him singing all day long.

Top Chef DC – The Chefs Are Schooled In Lunches

Top Chef - Out of the Lunch Box

In the Top Chef kitchen, Padma introduces Sam Kass, assistant White House Chef and Food Initiative coordinator.

Timothy tell us that he’s a pretty important person…feeding the President of the United States.

Padma says a successful government is bipartisan. (Haven’t seen one of those for awhile.) She says the chefs will be working in pairs to make a sandwich in 30 minutes. The chefs find that unusually easy, until Padma reveals that they will be working with a single apron tied around them and they may use only one hand each.

Obviously, the teams with a leftie will probably make out better. Angelo, with a sandwich shop in New York, says he would be so disgraced if he didn’t win that he would probably have to close down his shop.

Tracey is thrilled to be partnered up with Angelo, because of his sandwich expertise and also because she has a crush on him. (We learn later that she lives with her girlfriend and HER child. Whatev.)

Timothy and Alex are having a hard time teaming together. Alex is terrified that Tim is going to cut him while he (Alex) is holding whatever has to be cut. That WOULD be tricky.

There are some absolutely yummy sandwiches being made. I’m in awe of their creativity and their skills at doing all of this one-handed. I get really nervous when Lynne and Tiffany start using a giant slicing machine. What if something or someone slips? No, all is well.

Time is up. Here are all the dishes.

Padma asks Angelo how the challenge was. Angelo says Tracey is like is his twin sister. (I’m sure that’s what she wanted to hear after having her arm tightly wrapped around his waist for a half hour.) Sam says theirs is tasty.

To Andrea and Kevin, Sam says, “I like that pickle in there.”

We don’t hear Sam’s comments on every team’s sandwich. To Kenny and Ed: “I like the little spice you have in there with the chili.”

To Kelly and Arnold: “Very tasty.”

Tiffany and Lynne – “That’s a little hard to eat.” Lynne comes back (weakly) with “It’s more of a knife and fork kind of sandwich.”

Losers – Stephen and Jacqueline lacked creativity using white bread, Lynne and Tiffany’s didn’t have great texture.

Winners – Angelo and Tracey. Angelo AGAIN?!! WHO does he know? Kenny is MAD, because his sandwich came in second.

The Elimination Challenge is to do a healthy and delicious school lunch for the same budget as the public schools have - $2.68 per child or $134 for 50 kids. Sam is taking away 4 dollars to cover labor and other costs to get the food on the table. He says the schools have a lot more than that taken out.

Arnold says the budget is the most challenging thing. He says he spends $130 on himself ALONE when he goes out. (Cute cap. From his pre-Top Chef stylist, I wonder?)

They’ll work in teams of 4, with each chef responsible for one dish. Tracey and Angelo get to pick their team. They pick Kenny and Ed, which is quite smart. If their team is the losing team, that gives Kenny a bigger chance of going home.

Amanda has the insane idea of adding sherry to her chicken. Tamesha wants to make gnocchi. Luckily (for her), other people veto that.

Kelly is bossing her group around with her pork carnitas tacos idea. She’s actually making whole grain tacos from scratch. That’s kind of awesome.

The chefs shop and have to take tons of stuff away at the checkout line to stay within their budget.

Kenny is not happy with his team’s menu. Jacqueline’s pudding is too starchy and not good. There was no money left for her dish. She adds more sugar to break down the starch. I didn’t know sugar could do that. Arnold is not happy with Kelly. He thinks she keeps taking too much credit for the menu. (Well, the main part WAS her idea.)

Next day they arrive at a school to feed the kids. Angelo puts his peanut butter into a foam gun (y’know, one of those things that makes whipped cream from regular cream) and the valve is broken. He needs it to spray into the celery. He asks Kevin if he can use of one his valves. Kevin says he only has three of them. His team agrees with him instantly not to share! Andrea (?) says Angelo and Kenny are on the top and she’s on a mission to break Starsky and Hutch.

Tom arrives and is impressed by Kevin’s yogurt foam, which the kids will think is whipped cream.

Tom remarks to Kenny that he has a greater chance of going home.

The kids arrive and seem to like the food. The judges arrive – Tom, Gail, Sam and Padma.

Dishes are here.

They taste the food from Kevin’s team first. Sam likes the cole slaw. Padma thinks Alex did a great job on the chicken and Sam loves that he used apple cider instead of sugar. They all like Kevin’s melon kebab with the yogurt “whipped cream”. (Yay for Kevin!) Tom says the weak link is the mac and cheese.

Angelo and Kenny’s team:

They say that Ed’s sweet potato purée has way too much pepper in it. They like Kenny’s bread pudding and Tracey’s chicken burger. They are not impressed by the healthfulness of Angelo’s peanut butter and celery.

Kelly’s team:

Gail loves the color of the plate. They rave about Kelly's pork carnitas. Tom says Arnold’s salad pulls it off nicely, “I’m very happy with this.” Padma thinks Lynne’s bean cake is bit spicy, but they all like Tiffany’s dessert.

Stephen and Amanda’s team:

Sam’s eyebrows go up when Amanda says she made chicken with a sherry jus. (REALLY, WHAT was she thinking???) The collective eyebrows of the judges REALLY go up when Stephen says his rice dish has 165 grams OF FAT!!! He corrects himself and says 165 calories. WHEW! Kind of moronic.

Gail: “I have to say the words sherry jus don’t often come into the lunchroom scenario.” Duh! Of course the alcohol burns off, but there’s still the flavor of the sherry, which is not appropriate for a school lunch. Actually, Amanda is the moron. THAT is sooo stupid. She needs to go home for that.

They like Tamesha’s salad. Sam says Jacqueline’s pudding is too sweet. Padma likes the fresh strawberries on top. Gail says Stephen’s rice is mushy.

One kid says he didn’t like Stephen’s dish because it had "just rice and all that nasty stuff".

Sam tells the other judges that when kids grow up tasting high fat and high sugar food THAT'S what they become accustomed to. Getting to them when they’re young will change the course of their entire lives.

Back in the stew room, all the chefs quiet down for a minute and listen to Kevin snoring. Well, c’mon they have to be exhausted.

Padma comes out and calls Angelo and Kenny, Ed and Tracey along with Amanda, Stephen, Tamesha and Jacqueline. Everybody’s a bit confused. Are these the winners or not?

Padma announces that both of their teams had the worst menus of the day. OH! So Kenny had it exactly right when he predicted why Angelo picked him. He has a huger chance of going home – 50% as opposed to 25%, and Tom was right too when he mentioned that as a possibility.

Jacqueline tells the judges that she had to make a banana pudding, because there wasn’t money for chocolate. She said she added about 2 pounds of sugar. I have to figure that out. Is that really so bad? 32 ounces per 50 kids. That’s more than a tablespoon per kid. Is that possible? 2 teaspoons of sugar per kid. I guess that IS a lot.

Sam Kass (he’s cute) says that’s what happens when you’re not using good ingredients. You have to make them taste better by adding more fat or sugar. (I’m not sure that applied in this case, but okay.)

Amanda says the sherry chicken was her idea. Sam asks, “You had money for sherry?”, meaning how did they have money for that, but not for better dessert ingredients. Amanda never answers. I want to know what she would say.

Next they’re pretty hard on Angelo and Kenny’s team. Sam says he sees a lack of effort in adding vegetables to their menu and that it’s easy to load up on starch and sugar. Gail says Ed’s chili sweet potatoes were way too spicy for kids.

Kenny says he realized that there was a lack of vegetables and that’s why he roasted the tomato for the burger. Sam says, “Tomato’s a fruit!” Sam IS cute, but he is a bit humorless. Kenny looks amazed.

Tom asks Angelo if he would have made the celery with peanut butter if he hadn’t had immunity. He actually admits, “I can’t answer that right now.” Kenny looks appalled AND amused.

Tom continues to Angelo, “I’m not saying that you would sabotage the team, because I don’t think you’re that kind of guy.” I THINK HE’S THAT KIND OF GUY! Angelo says that’s not fair and that if people had wanted to do more vegetables, they could have. Kenny’s mouth is hanging open.

Kenny says he was thinking green leafy vegetables and “unfortunately OTHER people come up and they made up other decisions.” Then Stephen FROM THE OTHER TEAM chimes in and says that Kenny should have championed for more vegetables, if he felt that way. WHY is putting his two cents in? Pipe down!

Kenny comes back with, “It’s acceptable to have pudding with 2 pounds of sugar in it?” Then Amanda yells about processed peanut butter being one of the worst foods for kids. Ed responds that sherry wasn’t the greatest idea.

Luckily, Gail interrupts the bickering by asking Amanda, “Why DID you decide to use sherry?” Amanda says she really likes sherry and she likes it with braised chicken and mushrooms. Gail says there are a lot of things she likes too. She likes vodka but she wouldn’t cook with it (for a school lunch). Go Gail!

After the chefs leave, the judges decide that Angelo’s team had the worst menu hands down. They thought Kenny should have fought for a more nutritional menu. Tom says there definitely was gamesmanship going on.

But they also did NOT like the other team's food. Gail says Amanda’s chicken was one the most unappealing things she’s seen in a long time. Sam says NO school has sherry in their pantry. It really is insane. Tom says it was like a turd on the table. Did he really just say that?

They liked the taco menu the best.

Kelly wins with her carnitas. She says this healthy school lunch challenge is very close to her heart.

Surely, they are not sending Kenny home. It should be Amanda and she can take her bottle of sherry with her!

Watch as the judges debate which was worse – the chicken or the pudding. Plus at the end, we get a little behind the scenes view of what goes on in the deliberations.

I actually have NO idea who will go home. Amanda or Jacqueline? OH, it’s Jacqueline because of her grainy pudding which was loaded with sugar.. That kind of stinks. It wasn’t her fault entirely. She only got 10% of the budget. She got shafted.

In the previews, Arnold says he’s not a grill guy because it clogs his pores. Funny. We see a lot of them smoking. I feel sorry for the camera people who have to shoot that.

So what do you think? Should Kevin have let Angelo use their foamer? And do you think Angelo tried to sabotage his team’s success, which would give Kenny a bigger chance of going home? I believe the answer is no to the first question and abso-friggin’-lutely, yes, Angelo did try, any means possible, to get rid of Kenny.

Top Chefs Discuss Gulf Oil Crisis

Chef John Besh, with his six New Orleans restaurants, talks about the Gulf crisis from a chef’s perspective in the video that follows.

Other chefs, including the new Top Chef Master, Marcus Samuelsson, and the Voltaggio brothers, give their thoughts on what will happen to American seafood and how difficult it will be to rebuild.

One message from these chefs, who are speaking from the Aspen Food And Wine Classic, is that chefs have never before been so in touch with where their seafood is coming from. And they will continue to order as much as they can for as long as they can to support the Gulf’s seafood industry.

Comfy Alex, Cozy Food

Alex's Day Off with Alex Guarnaschelli

Comfy Sunday Brunch

Deluxe Coffee Cake

Homemade Butter

Omelet with Fines Herbes

White Mushrooms and Spinach

Raspberry and Lime Brunch Cocktail

As tough as Alex can be on the chefs on Chopped, she’s quite easy on her viewers on Alex’s Day Off, as she gently guides us through recipes that the home cook can easily accomplish. They may be simple, but each step is perfectly executed and THAT is what I appreciate about this show.

Alex is making brunch today.

She starts by making her own butter!!! (Does she serve this in her restaurant?) She whisks together 2 1/2 cups of cream and a cup of sour cream. (She notes in the recipe to use an all natural sour cream.) Alex puts the mixture into the KitchenAid and beats it on a low speed for awhile.

The milk solids are going to separate from the liquids, she tells us, and she’s going to wind up with butter and its by-product, which is buttermilk. Wouldn’t the same thing happen without the sour cream? I guess that makes it tangy.

Alex moves on to her coffee cake. For the topping, she melts 5 tablespoons butter and mixes together toasted walnuts, pecans, flour, sugar, cinnamon (which she sifts), light brown sugar and salt. She breaks it all up with her hands.

I love the aside that Alex adds when she’s talking about the nut topping. She’s visualizes the cake coming out of the oven…all golden and puffy with the crunchy topping. She picks off a piece of the topping and puts it into her…

Hold on! This is sounding rather racy. Alex gives us a naughty smile.

I really like her and I LOVE the Food Network manicurist, who is doing a great job. Her hands are more than camera-ready. Beautiful hair and makeup too, by the way.

Alex mixes melted butter into the topping mixture and spreads it out on a tray. She refrigerates it. I wonder why. Is it going on the BAKED cake?

Back to the HOMEMADE butter, Alex shows us the buttermilk in the bottom of the bowl. She drains it and gathers the remaining butter up in cheesecloth. She squeezes it gently to get rid of any additional liquid (the buttermilk) and then submerges the entire cheesecloth-wrapped ball into an ice bath.

Alex lifts it out the ball of butter and unwraps it. “I’m going to pop it on the table, kind of innocently, like, oh by the way, I just happened to whip up some HOMEMADE BUTTER.” She obviously expects our friends and family to rave. I certainly would.

For the coffee cake batter, she creams butter and sugar together and then cracks two eggs into a little bowl and beats them in separately.

Alex says sifting the dry ingredients incorporates them better AND aerates them. She sifts flour with salt, baking power, baking soda and flour. Next she measures out some of the homemade buttermilk and mixes it with some yogurt. She adds the dry and wet ingredients alternately to the creamed butter mixture.

It goes into a buttered 9 by 13 glass baking dish. She spreads it gently…the same way she talks to us. The topping goes on now, but WHY did she refrigerate it? Does that make it clump together more, even after baking?

Alex makes sure to put some extra topping in the corner, so she can fulfill her breaking-off-a-piece-of-the-topping fantasy when it comes out of the oven. It bakes for 40 to 50 minutes at 350º F.

Alex makes an herb syrup for a raspberry spritzer. She has ½ cup of water boiling on the stove and she adds ½ cup superfine sugar and then shuts off the heat. She adds mint leaves and just leaves it to infuse. Remember this for a fabulous iced tea. Add TONS of mint in that case.

Alex layers ¾ cup of sugar and 2 pints of raspberries in a tall pitcher. She keeps 1 pint of raspberries for garnish. She pounds the raspberries with the sugar, muddling them with a wooden spoon (I think it was a spoon). She adds ¼ cup fresh lime juice to the raspberries (to brighten the flavor), strains the syrup in and refrigerates the pitcher.

The coffee cake comes out of the oven and Alex tests it with a knife. She takes a “TINY” scoop from the corner and covers her tracks. I'm really liking her. I wonder if she has any tips for covering up the hole left by eating a quarter of a layer cake. What about a half a container of Edy’s caramel fudge?

To serve with an omelet, Alex quarters white button mushrooms and adds them to a hot cast iron skillet with some olive oil, garlic, thyme and salt. (MC says not to add the salt until the mushrooms are browned.)

I don’t think I need to describe how she makes toast. Oh wait, she’s slicing a beautiful loaf of sour dough bread quite thick, which will never fit in the toaster, so she’ll do it in the oven.

Alex adds some Marsala to the mushroom pan. She pulls it off the heat and then “pops” it back on and cooks it off.

The garlic cloves and thyme get picked out of the pan and, after turning off the heat, Alex adds some fresh spinach leaves.

For the omelet, Alex chops A LOT of chives, tarragon and parsley. She breaks 3 eggs (one-handed) into a bowl and whisks them with a fork. She tells us not to waste our energy overbeating, to save it for eating. I’m with her. She adds a tablespoon of water. GOOD! No salt?

Commercial.

She takes out the toast and tucks it into a towel to keep warm. She adds coarse salt and freshly ground pepper to the homemade butter. She tastes the mushrooms. Yum.

Alex adds a few drops of hot sauce, Worcestershire and salt to the eggs. She pours them into the hot pan. She stirs the eggs and then swirls the edges around. She adds the herbs. (Not all of them, but still A LOT.)

Alex finishes her omelet in a slightly untraditional way (to me, at least), but actually it’s neater. She folds in a third of the omelet towards herself and then she folds over the other third to envelope the herbs. She tilts it out onto the plate.

It’s less wide than usual, because it’s folded in thirds, not halves. And it looks less baveuse than I like it, but I bet it’s good. The mushrooms go on the plate, the toast gets buttered. She tastes everything. Loves it.

Alex fills up the chilled raspberry and mint syrup pitcher with champagne. She places raspberries in a champagne glass and pours herself a cocktail. Hmm, I AM liking that.

BTW, Bobby Flay (mwwwahhh!) is her executive producer, but I feel as if the concept and execution of the show is all Alex.

There was nothing I didn’t like. There were no loud voices or jerky movements, just the calm assurance of a professional showing us how it’s done. I would visit Alex’s kitchen anytime.

Buddy Bakes A Tower Of A Building AND Of Magazines, Plus He “Closes” That Bell

Cake Boss with Buddy Valastro

Magazines, a Mega Screen & Maurizio

Buddy has a couple of huge cakes to make this week. Has he EVER made a cake that flopped? And, except for Bridezilla, was there ever a customer who was unhappy with a cake from the Cake Boss? I don’t think so.

This week Grace takes a call and passes it on to Buddy. Silvia Davi from the NASDAQ wants Buddy to make a ten year anniversary cake for the NASDAQ building in Times Square. Buddy tells us that it has one of the largest megatron screens in the world.

BTW, the only information I could find on MEGATRON was as an action figure. I’m wondering whether Buddy was playing with the kids and had Transformers on the brain. Obviously, he’s tawking about the giant screen in front of the building. Whether it’s a megatron or not, I have no idea, but it IS a really big deal.

Nasdaq had invested an enormous amount in the sign, which will be the largest LED -- light-emitting diode -- in the world and the largest single sign of any kind in Times Square. Produced by Saco Smart Vision of Montreal, it will consist of 8,400 LED panels and cost about $25 million. The panels will allow a single image, or a multitude of images, to move across the sign's surface. The rent for the sign will be more than $2 million a year.

Silvia tells Buddy that she wants the cake to look exactly like the building AND she wants it to light up. Ah, that’s a piece of cake for Buddy….pun intended.

Remember when he had a fire eater light up a cake? Lights are easy.

Oh, wait a second, the NASDAQ lady also wants him to recreate the excitement of Times Square. If the singing cowboy in his underwear isn’t on that cake, I’ll be mad.

Nothing says Times Square to me more than a grown man in his tightie whities singing for his supper and hugging (ew) all the tourists.

Then, just to sweeten the deal, Silvia asks him if would ring the closing bell at the NASDAQ. Now THAT’S cool.

Buddy tells the crew about “closing the bell”. Frankie wants to know if Buddy heard them correctly. Remi says maybe they meant he was going to ring the dinner bell in the kitchen. At least he’d get a free meal.

Buddy tells them to drop dead. Buddy says he going to make “all youse” eat their words, when they see him ringing the bell. He actually says closing the bell again, but I understand what he means. (I wonder if the final scene of the episode will be Buddy ringing the bell or the guys eating their words.)

We see the plan for the tower and the building AND the street. Let’s see if he includes the naked cowboy. Ok…streets. Check. Hot dog stand. Check. People walking around. Check. The underweared cowboy. Not check. (Did you know that he wears TWO pairs of tightie whities? I guess to protect himself as well as us.)

Buddy’s worried about lighting up the NASDAQ tower.

Buddy calls over Sunshine to do the sculpting of the small elements. He’s going to make a vanilla cake with chaw-co-lot fudge filling. They stack the cake which makes the rounds of the tower go up, up and up.

Next Buddy goes to the Hearst Corporation building to see Gayle and Susan Casey. They want a cake for O Magazine’s 10th anniversary. He brings them lots of cupcakes to taste. They’re having 10 different people make birthday cakes. (Wasn’t HIS the one on the anniversary show at Radio City?) Gayle says she wants the cake to be so pretty that when you see a picture of it in the magazine, you just want to lick it. His idea is to do 35 or 40 issues of the magazine made out of cake, stacked on top of each other.

Back at the shop, Cousin Ant-Knee is complaining that there are too many deliveries. He repeatedly says “I’m feeling overwhelmed.” I guess that’s the line the producers gave him to say.

PLUS he says he could do more. He wants to BAKE! Buddy looks at him sideways as if he wants to whack him.

Buddy says he has to prove himself before he’ll share his father’s recipes with him. Ant-Knee says he can do it. Buddy admits he’s a hard worker, so he’ll give him a shot. But Buddy’s worried about who will do the deliveries. Someone suggests Maurizio, “Peewee”, his wife’s brother, his brother in law. How come we haven’t seen him before? He works part-time at the bakery cleaning up.

Back to the O cake, they print the front covers of the magazines in edible icing. It looks so cool. It actually looks like the actual magazines, but in CAKE!

They’re finishing up the HUGE NASDAQ cake, it looks so big that it’s almost true to size. He comes up with a plan for the “megatron” with “Disco” Luster dust. Buddy is excited.

Buddy gives Maurizio a test to see if he’s able to deliver his cakes. He makes him drive in the alley through a bunch of cones. Next Maurizio has to touch a cone with the (large) car, WITHOUT knocking off an egg which is balancing on top of the cone. He does it! And the test cake in the trunk was okay too. Buddy slaps him (hard) in congratulations.

They go back to the millions of details on the NASDAQ cake. Buddy aims strobe lights at the cake to make the luster dust glitter. He arranges them JUST right and it looks amazing.

Buddy stacks all the O magazine cakes. It looks amazing and on the bottom he puts a cake replica of the first magazine they ever published. They have to bring the cake to be photographed for the magazine. Rachel and Celia from O magazine LOVE it. They want Buddy in the picture too.

Buddy says the NASDAQ cake really has to have a Times Square feel. He doesn’t want to see the wires on the strobe lights, so he makes (cake) billboards to cover then up.

They deliver it to the NASDAQ building and guess what? The cake doesn’t fit through the front door of the building! Of course, it doesn’t. Buddy yells, “It don’t fit through the front door!” What will Buddy do?!!! Commercial, of course.

Meanwhile there’s a huge crowd gathered around outside. Buddy and the boys take the cake around the corner to another entrance, which “luckily” had a Buddy-sized-cake doorway.

He shows the NASDAQ people the cake with the strobes. Everyone is thrilled. He meets Silvia and she asks him if he’s ready. Buddy says he’s so excited to be closing the bell. Silvia doesn’t correct him, except she says immediately, “You’re going to close the MARKET.” Buddy says, “Yeah, I’m going to close the market. They don’t believe me,” pointing to his friends.

He sends his guys outside to watch. On the huge building we see Silvia introducing “Cake Artist” Buddy Valastro to officially ring the NASDAQ closing bell. Buddy says, “I’m just a baker from New Joisey and here I am closing the biggest market in the world” The we see something on the closed captioning about the American Dream and he says (to us) that he kept thinking of his dad watching him from above. They count down and he “closed that bell”.

The last scene ISN’T Buddy making the guys eat crow, but the entire crew admiring the spread about their cake in O magazine. Buddy did it again with lots of help. That’s what it’s about – family and cake and the American dream.