World Cake Championship

Tetreault: The grand national wedding cake competition

Is the largest cake-decorating competition

In the united states.

It's like the world cup of cake design.

Excuse me. Coming through.

Man: It's the crème de la crème of wedding cakes and sugar art.

Vincent: It's recognized all around the world.

Up to 83,000 people pass through.

Honestly, that's awesome.

Scutti: And anyone who is anyone knows a win at oklahoma

Is a lifetime accomplishment.

Girl: The cakes look beautiful.

It's crazy how people can make it all edible.

It's so awesome! I can't even talk.

Tetreault: Because this is the 25th anniversary

And the grand prize is $30,000 in cash,

I am expecting the competition to be fierce.

Perkins: There are competitors coming from all over the world

To dethrone me.

I'm coming for you.

No!

Aah!

$30,000 is a life-changing amount of money.

Vincent: The winner is...

$10.

Narrator: The tulsa state fair is famous

For its livestock shows,

Carnival rides, and horse competitions.

But the star attraction

Is the grand national wedding cake competition.

Woman: I come about every year.

It's one of my favorite exhibits.

Woman #2: I'm just totally blown away

That someone can do something like this.

This is just unbelievable to me.

Narrator: While paris, new york, and beverly hills house

Some of the greatest cake makers,

This competition is one of the most prestigious cake

Shows in the world.

Months of hard work all culminate to the main event.

30 minutes! 30 minutes to finish up!

Vincent: This is the moment where everything

Is hurry, hurry, hurry.

Are we ready? Yeah.

Competitors only have a limited time

To set up their cakes.

Time is ticking down.

Aah! Even this I'm shaking.

The who's who of the cake-decorating world

Wants to be here in oklahoma, in tulsa,

Especially in the wedding cake competition,

Where people come from all over the globe.

I'm laura saporiti, and I come from Italy.

I came all the way from the netherlands.

This is the most challenging competition I've ever entered.

I'm freaking out because I've damaged my cake

And I have 20 minutes to repaint it.

This is a really stressful time.

Things get broken.

-Aah! -They're in a rush.

They're nervous. Their anxiety is so high.

Boon: Entering the competition,

This is where you start to find out what you're up against.

I think this cake's gonna win. This cake's gonna win.

This cake -- it's very nerve racking.

It's a lot of stress.

Vincent: Everything on the cakes is edible,

And the score sheet's pretty tough.

Five minutes to close!

-Holy crap. -Five minutes, please!

-You okay? -Yep.

Aah!

The judges are looking for exquisite design,

The artistry, the interpretation of the theme,

The difficulty of the techniques used,

And obviously, the "wow" factor.

Mills: The theme for this year's competition is

"I am a modern classic."

Vincent: Interpretation is left entirely up to them.

They can go to whatever source they want to,

Such as fashion, an icon, or art --

Something that stand the test of time.

Mills: To win would be the pinnacle of their dreams.

To win here at the oklahoma state sugar art show

Would be the icing on the cake.

The winner is...

Perkins: My name is bryson perkins.

Last year was grand prize,

Which I'm looking to hopefully repeat this year.

My piece last year was my ode du romance cake,

And it featured two golden hand-molded peacocks,

Embroidered flower details with thousands and thousand,

Thousands of hand-punched gum-paste sequins.

Being the reigning champ is not easy.

There are competitors coming from all over the world

To dethrone me.

And that is not going to happen.

I am a creative director at triolo's bakery.

Maybe with pink on that one.

So, for the oklahoma state sugar art show,

I chose the magnificent grace kelly.

I am making a three-tier wedding cake.

The top tier will feature the headdress

Worn by princess grace kelly, lots of hand-molded decorations,

Little figurine sculptures, multiple hand-cut flowers,

A base relief popping off in a 3-d diorama tier.

There are a few techniques on my cake

That I'm doing this year that I have never seen before,

And that earns a lot of points with innovation,

Such as my hand-piped royal-icing floating vine work.

The base features thousands of leaves,

Which I piped into a little teardrop

And veined each and every leaf.

I want to continue with that cohesive design.

Everything is 100% handmade.

No pre-made decorations.

I have been working on my oklahoma wedding cake

For about 650 hours.

I have about 100 hours' more worth of work.

This will definitely wow the judges.

Vincent: The grand national wedding cake competition

Is a place where really unusual and fabulous

Techniques will be exhibited.

The sky's the limit.

Tetreault: Sugar art basically means it's all made

Of a sugar product

And it's edible and it's fun to work with.

Grady: My name is rachel grady.

This will be my fourth year

Competing at the oklahoma sugar art show.

Last year, I placed second.

I was shocked.

I had 200 royal-icing wings wrapping around the sides.

Not a lot of people do the wings

Because they're very delicate and they break very easily.

I'm an award-winning cake designer and full-time mom.

Is this fun?

Yeah! Yeah!

My mother and I share a cake-decorating business

That we run together called sassy sweets.

I am addicted to competing.

That's the only reason we still do orders

Is so we can pay to go to competition.

This is our happy wall.

This, obviously, is the one I'm the most proud of.

This is my first runner-up ribbon from last year.

So, the theme this year is "I'm a modern classic,"

And I'm interpreting that by combining a modern china pattern

And an older china pattern.

The title of my cake is "delicate grace."

Starting at the bottom, we have a square cake,

And on the sides, royal-icing cages.

My second tier is going to be wrapped

With a spiral of bridgeless string work.

The top two tiers will have royal-icing wings

Wrapping around the side.

Probably the thing that I'm most excited about on this cake

Is the spiral string work.

I'm very carefully piping fresh royal icing,

Barely touching it to these pins.

The plan is that they will dry

And then be sturdy enough to extend from the cake

Without the pins.

I wasn't sure if this was possible

Because the royal icing is so delicate.

Pulling the pins is one of my favorite parts

About string work.

I just love the magic of that icing just sticking

Straight out from the cake.

When the cake is back right-side-up,

It'll have a wave pattern.

It's not something I've seen any of the other competitors do,

So I'm hoping that it's something

That'll really catch the judge's eye.

Scutti: My name is ted.

I own sugar sugar cake studio with my husband adam.

Cheers. Cheers.

My expectations are to place in the top five

And, ideally, to win.

In 2014, I placed 21st, 2015, I placed 15th,

And in 2016, I placed 9th.

My theme this year is based upon the spanish designer balenciaga.

My design features different interpretations of lace.

At the top, I chose to have a custom silk screen created.

Below that tier, you will see a separator.

The main tier features edible real sterling silver,

Based upon a gown that balenciaga created.

I've invested approximately 500 hours on my cake,

And I'm not going home without a ribbon.

I worked with an artist in Italy

To create a custom design for me,

Which was then manufactured into this special stencil.

This is basically a silk screen,

Like you would use to, say, make a t-shirt.

And I'm gonna put the stencil on top,

Use some opaque royal icing,

And I'm pushing down ever so slightly as I do this

Because I do want to encourage the royal icing

To go through the stencil.

Now, in one smooth motion, the stencil comes off.