Grove City College will celebrate the “Cake Wars” victory of Emily Bartlow ’16 and Tristan Slater ’16 with a viewing party and cake tasting Thursday on campus.
Bartlow and Slater bested the competition on an episode of the Food Network bake-off show “Cake Wars” that aired Monday night. The Grove City College team was challenged to create a Minecraft-themed cake. Their answer, a towering, gravity-defying explosion of pixilated deliciousness that captured the popular video game’s look and themes, overwhelmed the show’s judges and won the women a $10,000 prize.
At 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 4, the College will show the episode in Sticht Lecture Hall in the Hall of Arts and Letters for a campus and community audience. Bartlow and Slater will take questions from the audience afterward. The viewing party will be followed by a cake tasting in the Atrium of HAL. Bartlow and Slater will bake versions of their qualifying and winning cakes for the event.
Bartlow, of Sacramento, Calif., is a December graduate with a communications studies degree who has been decorating and baking cakes since she was in junior high. She applied for the show on a whim last summer just before returning to Grove City College for her final semester. Slater, a communications studies major from Bethel Park, Pa., was a natural to serve as her second on the show. The women bonded as freshman roommates over their shared love of baking and saw the chance to compete on national television a great way to mark their final semester together.
The pair had just a few weeks to prepare for the show. They didn’t know the theme but they worked on different flavor profiles, decorating techniques and test cakes before heading off to Los Angeles over fall break to tape the show. They couldn’t tell anyone about their experience until the broadcast was scheduled and had to keep their victory a secret until Monday night.
“It was the hardest secret to keep,” Slater said.
“The entire faculty in the Department of Communication & Visual Arts is proud of Emily and Tristan,” communication studies professor Dr. Daniel S. Brown said. “Those of us who had them in classes last semester knew they were up to something big, but we weren’t privy to the specifics. It’s been fun to enjoy this celebratory moment with them.”
The women are chronicling their "Cake Wars" experience on Facebook and their website Kindred Cupboards.
View photos of the duo in action HERE.