The squabbling Gosselin family is being replaced by sweeter fare as “Cake Boss” takes over the time slot that has been occupied by “Jon & Kate Plus 8,” which is ending its run.
“Cake Boss,” with an average of two-plus million viewers, launched its second season on Monday, Oct. 26. Audiences have warmed to owner Buddy Valastro and his clan who bicker, fight and constantly kid each other all while creating elaborate cakes that can fetch $3,000 a piece.
“We yell and scream. I would jump in front of a bus for one of my family members and they would do the same for me,” says Valastro. “Most people should be like us.”
Buddy Valastro runs Carlos’ Bakery, in Hoboken, N.J. His father, Buddy Sr., bought the bakery from “Old Man Carlos” in 1964. Valastro started working in the bakery at just age 11, after his father made him come in after school so that he could keep an eye on his troublemaking son.
Valastro, now 32, has been a baker ever since. He took over the shop while he was still in high school after his father died of cancer.
“I never liked school, but I was always very smart,” says Valastro. “I was a B or C student. When I came to the bakery, I found a sense of satisfaction in making something and seeing people eat it. Or seeing a cake that we’ve made and saying, ‘Wow, that’s the coolest thing I’ve ever seen.’
“It’s like being an artist. You spend days painting a painting. When you finish it, you step back, you feel like you want to fall down, then you say, ‘Look what I did with my God-given hands.’ When I’m making cakes, I go into that zone, I don’t hear nothing, I don’t feel nothing, all my pain goes away. It clears my mind.”
And the cakes are works of art. Valastro crafts everything from prehistoric animals for New York’s Natural History Museum to a giant Leaning Tower of Pisa [see sidebar].
“It’s all trial and error,” Valastro says. “You remake cakes three or four times until they get it right.”
It’s a challenge to run a busy bakery while shooting a reality show, but the entire family lends a hand. “My wife helps out. My nieces and nephews are starting to show more interest,” Valastro says.
Working day and night with the extended family provides the show with a lot of fodder. One nephew arrives to help and his eyes widen at the sight of a table covered in candy to decorate a cake.
“Please, can I have just one piece?” he begs.
“No,” says the boy’s father, Buddy’s brother-in-law and one of the store’s bakers. The nephew steals some anyway.
Valastro himself is a lot of bark and very little bite. When his cousin, Johnny, gets into a car accident while making a delivery, he says, “Buddy is going to kill me.” Upon hearing about it, Buddy’s first question is not “How’s the cake?” or “How’s the car?” but “Are you okay?”
“The cake was fine and the car can be fixed. All that matters is that everyone is okay,” says Valastro.
The show has brought Carlos’ Bakery so much success that the Web site (at carlosbakery.com) informs visitors: “We are unable to accommodate any specialty cake orders for October, November, December and January.”
Still, Valastros is thinking about what comes next: “This show gives me a chance to make my mark. When I hear that people all over the country want to taste my products, I want to let them. There might be Carlos’ Bakeries all over the country if I can figure out the right formula.”