BUDD Y: On this episode of "Cake Boss"...
25-cent cannolis!
Every year at Carlo's, we do a cannoli throwback event.
Hey, Danny, you mixed the cannoli cream?
Yeah.
It's 90 degrees in the back. The thing is out.
What were you thinking? It's sour.
I got like 1, 000 cannoli shells ready,
and now I got, like, nothing to fill them with.
These guys wanted to kick off the dragon-boat season.
Where's the other ones?
He told me just to make one.
He's got to make a cake.
What is he gonna do? When do we ever say, " Make one"?
I only heard you once.
So, are you the liar, or are you the liar?
This is Carlo's Bakery.
♪ Sugar ♪
Every week, thousands of cakes and pastries go out these doors.
♪ Oh, sugar, sugar ♪
This is the crew. Mia famiglia.
♪ Sugar ♪
We're gonna take this bakery to the top.
They call me Buddy. I'm the boss.
♪ Sugar ♪
♪ Oh, sugar, sugar ♪
I just don't want to do a freaking boat
on top of a sheet cake.
What if we do it round?
No, I totally see what you're saying.
I think even the dragons could kind of like wrap
over the edge of the cake.
I had this consultation today with these two captains
of a dragon-boat-racing team.
These guys wanted to kick off the dragon-boat season.
We are having a fund-raiser.
We thought it would be a great thing
to have a centerpiece of a cake.
I don't want to sound stupid,
but I don't know too much about dragon-boat racing.
You're not stupid.
A little uneducated about dragon-boat racing.
It's mostly wooden boats that's in a shape of a dragon.
KEITH: Generally, there's about 20 paddlers on each boat.
There's a guy in the front drumming
and the guy in the back steering the whole boat.
It kind of started off as a traditional thing.
And nowadays it's evolved more into an actual sport.
We race all across North America.
Actually, we've gone internationally, too.
Awesome.
We understand you have a lot of ideas,
but we want to make sure that the Chinese culture
is definitely in everything that this cake's gonna turn out.
So we want to tie the culture
and the whole idea of dragon boat all together.
I am going to make you guys a fantastic dragon-themed cake.
We're gonna respect the culture.
I won't let you down.
TITIA: Awesome.
BUDD Y: The idea behind a dragon-boat cake
is to make this really big bottom, like a 24-inch round.
And around the bottom of that cake,
I was gonna have two dragon heads
with bodies kind of racing around the bottom tier.
And then I was gonna make another two tiers on top of it,
and we were going to do some hand painting
of some dragon boats
and then Chinese houses
and really bring in the culture in the hand painting.
Listen, authentic, authentic, authentic.
Let's do what we got to do. Let's go.
You guys start making the dragon heads.
The focal point of this dragon-boat cake
is the dragons' heads.
The heads are made
out of cereal treats and modeling chocolate.
DAN I ELLA: We should make them the same size.
BUDD Y: They're gonna mold and shape the cereal treats
to get the basic shape and size.
So that they'll fit on top of the cake,
those heads need to be about the size of a softball.
Do this in two parts.
How we doing?
Okay.
I want to do 30 pounds of cannolis.
All right, I'll make the mix.
Let's get cracking.
Every year at Carlo's, we do a cannoli throwback event.
For one day, we have a stand outside,
and we sell cannolis for what we sold them for in 1964.
25-cent cannolis!
WOMAN: All right, who's next?
Just a little way to give back to the community,
to let them know that we're here
and we love them and we appreciate them.
We got to make lots of cannolis,
and we got to make one giant cannoli.
I want to use that as a display.
I think it'll be cool.
The cannoli recipe we use
is the same recipe that my father brought over with him
from Sicily.
I mean, that's been around for a long, long time.
To make the dough for the cannoli shells,
we start with sugar and shortening.
Then we add the vinegar to that
to make the shell flaky and tender.
Next, flour, cinnamon, and vanilla.
Now that I got the cannoli dough mixing,
I'm ready to stack the dragon cake.
Joey!
Send me up that sponge!
Huh?
Please, for the big 24-inch round.
The plan is to do vanilla and chocolate layers
with chocolate-fudge filling.
This is what we're doing, right?
BUDD Y: Where's the other ones?
Just got the one.
Who said one?
One cake.
I need three pieces for this.
They only made the one.
The other two, I got to put in the oven now.
I said to make three pieces.
What happened?
This is a 24-inch round. It's not a cupcake.
By the time they take this cake mix, put it in the oven,
bake it, and let it cool down,
you're talking four or five hours.
He told me just to make one.
Frankie, you told me to make one.
He's got to make a cake. When do we ever say, " Make one"?
I said, "Sal, Buddy wants three
of the biggest form we have, round. "
I only heard you once.
-You screwed up. -I screwed up?
No. Frankie's fault.
-It's my fault? -Yeah, your fault.
So, are you the liar, or are you the liar?
You don't want to be responsible.
I was busy.
I said, "Frankie, just go down.
Tell Sal to throw three 24s in the oven --
one vanilla, two chocolate. "
Between Frankie and Sal -- they've been here long enough
where they should be able to make three 24-inch sponge
without me having to get aggravated.
Put the sponge in the oven.
Get it to me as fast as you can.
At this time, there's nothing else we can do.
We got it all under control. Don't worry about it.
You're gonna have the sponge. Don't worry.
Let's go. Let's go.
Yeah, black and white.
Let's roll out the giant cannoli.
Every year for the cannoli event,
I make this giant cannoli.
-You got the pipe? -Yeah.
I take the cannoli dough,
and I wrap it around a piece of pipe.
This is the centerpiece
of our whole little cannoli stand outside.
People get such a kick out of seeing this.
This giant cannoli is, like, 26 inches long, okay?
And it's 6-inch-diameter hole.
I'm gonna sink it.
And I deep-fry it.
Frying this giant cannoli is really a one-shot deal,
because the oil could, like, just bubble and come out
and make the cannoli crack.
SAL: It's hot.
We got it, we got it, we got it.
Whoo-hoo!
Good job.
A lot of cannolis are gonna go in there.
It looks good.
Here's your cake.
Finally, I get the chocolate sponge brought up by Joey,
and I can start this dragon cake.
So, the first thing I do is fill it.
I'm doing a black-and-white cake
with lots of chocolate fudge between the layers.
One, two, three.
Now, after I fill this black-and-white cake,
I'm gonna dirty-ice it to get it set up to put the fondant on.
And I'm like, "Let me put it in the fridge
so that it can cool down a little bit. "
I was shopping with your wife yesterday.
Your anniversary is coming up.
This week is me and my wife Lisa's
8-year wedding anniversary,
and I really want to do something special.
I feel really bad.
I mean, I've been working so much.
It's 12, 18 hours a day.
If you've been busy, it'll mean a lot.
Take a little time.
Plan something. Do something special with her.
Put some consideration in it, and it means a lot to women.
I agree. I won't let her down.
-Good luck. -Thanks.
It's a special anniversary, cousin.
It's going to be eight years.
Eight years.
Talking with Grace got me thinking.
I want to do something really nice for Lisa --
something unique.
I mean, I need to show her how much she really means to me.
I decided to replicate the top tier of our wedding cake.
I also wanted to do the special filling I made for Lisa.
It's checkerboard. This is how you do it.
What you have to do is take layers of vanilla cake
and layers of chocolate cake,
and you cut even circles of each cake.
And you take out one of the chocolate rings
and you put the vanilla ring.
And then the chocolate ring and then a vanilla ring.
It's kind of like black, white, black, white in a line.
Checkerboard cake is all about when you cut it.
When you cut into a slice of checkerboard cake,
it looks like a checkerboard --
black, white, black, white, black, white.
I n between each layer of checkerboard sponge,
I spread some chocolate ganache,
chocolate mousse, fresh raspberries.
This is a special cake.
Once the cake is dirty-iced and covered in white fondant,
it's flower time.
For this cake, I used some roses, some hydrangeas,
and some eucalyptus.
It looks good. All done.
It looks like the top tier of your wedding cake.
I should know. I was there.
I think my wife's gonna like it.
-She's gonna love it. -Beautiful.
-Hey, Danny. -Yes, sir?
M ix me a batch of cannoli cream -- about 150 pounds.
I got to do that cannoli-fest thing.
-All right. Get it done. -Okay.
BUDD Y: To make cannoli cream, you start with impastata,
which is ricotta cheese that has a very smooth texture.
Then we add fresh ricotta,
sugar, vanilla,
cinnamon oil, diced melon,
and chocolate chips.
All right. Come on, man.
I want to get these cannolis done.
I got to do 60 pounds of cannoli dough.
Come on, man, we got a lot of cannolis!
We got to move it!
We roll out the cannoli on the sheeter,
and then we roll it back up on a rolling pin.
We have a cutting board that we lay it out on,
and we lay it in layers.
So it's layer and layer and layer and layer and layer.
We have a cutter, and we have to cut through.
'Cause it's layered and you cut through,
out of every cut, you can get three, four, five cannolis.
MAURO: Holy cannoli.
BUDD Y: Somebody takes those cannolis
and lay them out on a board.
After it's lined up on the boards,
then it goes to the sticking process.
You take your cannoli shell, which is oval shaped,
you take the wooden stick, put it inside.
You flop one side over and then the other side.
The two sides are held together with a little bit of egg wash.
Then it goes into the deep fryer, man.
Fry our cannoli shells in lard.
That's the trick, okay?
Not vegetable shortening. Lard.
That's the best-tasting cannoli you can get.
Nice and crispy.
Once we get a batch of shells fried up,
we got to take them upstairs and fill them with cream.
Hey, Danny, you mixed the cannoli cream?
Yeah.
It's 90 degrees in the back. The thing is out.
It's sitting on the floor.
You don't leave cannoli cream out in the oven room.
It's gonna spoil!
You're telling me that you left the cannoli cream in the back
in 90 degrees
and you didn't put it in the refrigerator?
Whoa, whoa, whoa. You called me upstairs.
But you should have told me you weren't finished with it!
That's what I said to you.
You didn't tell me that you weren't finished with it!
You said, " I'm gonna finish the cream. "
Danny, it's 100 degrees.
You got to do something, you got to finish it!
-You need help? -Flip it.
Okay, tablecloth?
BUDD Y: What were you thinking?
It's sour.
DANN Y: How can it be sour?
I only left it outside for two minutes.
Come on, man!
You know better than this!
DANN Y: I only left it two minutes.
That's all I did. Two minutes.
Cannolis!
We don't have the cannoli cream yet, Grace.
BUDD Y: I can't believe it. Just get out of here.
I can't believe I got to throw this whole batch out.
It's all spoiled.
I got this cannoli event in a few minutes.
M y sisters are setting up outside.
People are already lining up.
I've got like 1, 000 cannoli shells ready,
and I got nothing to fill them with.
Scale out the sugar. I'm gonna get the cheese.
We got to get it done. This cannoli thing is happening.
Come on.
So, Sal and I, we got to bust our butts
making a whole nother batch of cannoli cream
because Danny left it out.
All right.
You know what, Sal?
If you fill them, I can just stuff them.
Yeah. All right.
BUDD Y: The giant cannoli is the centerpiece
for the cannoli event.
This thing took like 150 cannolis
to stuff this giant cannoli.
There was cannolis falling out this thing.
MAMA: The best cannolis you're ever gonna taste.
They're the real thing -- here at Carlo's.
-Look at that cannoli! -Wow.
MAMA: Let's hear it for him. That's the cake boss.
[ Cheering ]
BUDD Y: People really love to see the giant cannoli
with the little cannolis coming out.
I mean, it's like you just want to dig into it.
GRACE: Holy cannoli!
It is cannoli day at Carlo's!
At Carlo's, what we do is fill the cannolis fresh.
Right there. You take a bite of it,
you can feel the shell crisp in your mouth.
It's just like, "Forget about it. "
-Keep filling, Lisa. -I'm filling, Grace.
BUDD Y: I got a line going up the block, around the corner.
I got to stand there and pump out cannolis like a machine.
I got boxes of shells.
I got somebody just filling the bag up,
and I'm just filling cannolis like a maniac.
But my customers really appreciate it,
so it was awesome.
Maddy, pass the powdered sugar.
COOKI E: It's great that they're doing this.
I love the cannolis because of the filling.
The filling's the best.
BUDD Y: I mean, we definitely sold over 1, 000 cannolis.
At 25 cents a pop, what do you think?
How could you go wrong?
While I was outside at the cannoli event,
Toni and Daniella were inside working on the heads
of the dragon-boat cake.
They put red and white modeling chocolate
on top of the cereal-treat base
so that they could really sculpt it.
Toni and Daniella are two of my most talented artists.
They're not really cake people. They're more artists.
So they sculpt, they paint. They do more of that.
I usually give them assignments where it's intricate detail.
Once the heads are sculpted into the shape that we want,
we add a little luster dust to add texture and shine.
Then come extra details like edible beads and teeth
and eyes made out of chocolate.
So, the dragon-boat cake is a three-tiered cake
that I'm stacking off-centered
so to have a little room around the bottom tier
so the dragons could kind of coil their way around.
One, two, three.
How are the heads? They done?
We're done, yeah.
They look awesome.
But I got to tell you, guys,
you really, really screwed me with the size of these heads.
I look at these dragon heads, and they were freaking big.
I said "softball, " and they made bowling balls.
That affects things.
As good as they look, it's really, really a setback,
because now I have to change the whole design of the cake.
Now I got these huge dragon heads.
It changes everything, because I only have about this much room
to fit a dragon head that's this big.
So, I mean, I'm in trouble.
I know it's a different idea,
but I think it might end up looking...
better.
You don't think that these heads are too big for this cake?
Honestly?
It can fit, like, on the front of it.
It doesn't have to sit on the center.
The head can be coming off a little bit.
It could?
Right?
No, 'cause it's got to be supported.
This doesn't fit.
This monster is bigger than the 10-inch.
This thing barely fits on here -- the whole thing.
Put one up here, on top of the 10-inch, facing this way.
BUDD Y: Alls I got to say is,
"Thank God I got Mauro watching my back. "
It barely fits on there -- just the small one.
BUDD Y: Because we put our heads together,
we came up with a new direction for this cake.
I guess we could kind of wrap his body here
and then his body comes around here.
Crisscrossing in the back.
I wasn't happy that I had to change it,
but you got to do what you got to do.
I scrapped the water painting on it,
and I figured we'll just do bigger dragon bodies
and make the dragons a more predominant part of the cake.
I'm like, " Mauro, let's get the cereal treats,
and let's make the bodies. "
We kind of rolled them up and made the bodies
like a coily, dragony, snake type of thing.
Give me the buttercream bag.
-Hey, Danny. -Yes, sir?
Make me red. Add a little modeling chocolate to it.
It's got to be, like, you know, red to go with this.
I got a great idea for the scales.
What I'm gonna do is I'm gonna take a textured rolling pin
that's like a cobblestone.
We took that, and we kind of wrapped it around the cake.
And then what we'll do is where the seam is,
we'll cut, like, a gold strip.
To decorate them a little bit.
BUDD Y: Then I called over Christine,
who's actually really, really innovative and talented,
and she cut me out some different wavy patterns
that we put on the side
so it kind of represents the water and the dragons.
And then I used airbrush to add gold highlights
to the entire cake.
And, I mean, it looked hot.
She looks all done.
I think that even though we had a mishap
with the heads being too big,
it turned out to be awesome.
I think it looks better than the original design.
I think it worked out.
We had to change the design a little bit.
We had a little mishap here and there,
but, in the long run, we made everything work
and it looks good.
They're going to be happy.
Good job, team.
Let's pack this puppy up, and let's go.
It's a heavy dragon.
Whoo!
[ Cheering ]
-Thank you. Thank you. -Thank you.
It's an amazing cake.
-You guys like it? -Yeah.
Everybody say thank you!
ALL: Thank you!
[ Cheering ]
Thank you, Buddy.
BUDD Y: I mean, they went nuts. They totally loved it.
It was awesome.
-It was our pleasure. -Thank you.
Can we eat this? We can eat this, right?
Of course you can eat it! This is yours.
Hi. Good evening.
-How are you? -How you doing?
BUDD Y: Tonight I'm taking my wife, Lisa,
to Le Cirque in the city.
And we're gonna celebrate our wedding anniversary.
I know I've been working a lot.
12, 18 hours a day.
I understand.
But tonight's our anniversary,
and I really wanted tonight to be special.
I feel like we're dating again.
[ Laughter ]
I'll never forget when we got married --
how beautiful you looked that day.
I have a little something for you.
LISA: Really?
-Close your eyes. -Okay.
Close them. Keep them closed.
Open.
Oh, my God!
It's the top tier of our wedding cake!
See, lots of guy could cheat and buy flowers.
You hand-made these all by yourself.
BUDD Y: Every one of them.
I didn't let nobody help me with it.
It means even more.
And she was just floored,
because she remembers our wedding cake.
And then when she cut into it and got a slice of it,
she was even more happy,
because it was her favorite filling.
Checkerboard.
-That's for you. -Thank you.
I mean, it was really a spectacular evening.