Windermere man takes the cake and $10K, at Food Network competition
What does Christmas in July look like?
It could look like a melted snowman. Or a luscious, creamy ice cream cake. For Alessandro Caria, 35, it looked a lot like both — plus a pay day of $10,000.
The Windermere resident, a Disney employee and home baker, just won the top prize on the Food Network’s “Christmas in July” Holiday Baking Championship, which aired Monday.
Caria edged out three other bakers, including one professional pastry chef, to take home the cash and the bragging rights after rising to an ice-cream cake challenge centered on the show’s heat-plus-holiday theme.
“I’ve always baked,” Caria says. “Growing up in Italy, my cousin owned a baking supply store, so I have always enjoyed experimenting. She had all the cool toys and I enjoyed seeing how they all worked.”
Cakes and cookies were his usual suspects back then, but upon moving to the States, his discovery of and delight with gingerbread amped his pre-existing fervor for the winter holiday season.
“It’s not an Italian flavor,” he laughs, “but I thought it was the best thing ever!”
His holiday hype wasn’t faked for the show — Caria often asks traveling friends to bring home ornaments — and working at Disney, “where the holidays last longer than most other places” has only served to feed his Christmas fire.
In fact, the show’s first hurdle threw brownies his way; contestants were required to theme their treats on a melted snowman. Caria responded with a gingerbread-flavored variety, using an Italian mascarpone buttercream to create the snowmen. Spiced rum ganache-filled chocolates served as tiny hats.
Judge Duff Goldman of “Ace of Cakes” fame proclaimed himself drunk after consumption.
While the brownies didn’t win him an advantage for the final round, his masterpiece creation — which alternated layers of maple-spice pumpkin cake with pumpkin butter and dulce de leche-swirled gelato — brought home the win (even with the lategame texture challenge; Caria put a crunch layer of granola, pecan and feuilletine into the confectionary mix).
Its exterior wowed the judges as much as its flavor.
Decorating cakes, in fact, is his greatest passion. Check out the website for his home-baking business — Daisy Cakes Orlando — and you’ll find it evident.
Named for his dog, Daisy (a “graduate” of the Pet Alliance of Greater Orlando), Caria launched the business back in February, shortly before his crusade for competitive fame began. He’s been baking custom cookies, cakes and more for friends, family and colleagues for years, a practice that took successful root.
He and his husband, Robert, also a cast member, have been married six years and while orders at Daisy Cakes have already amped up in the wake of the show, Caria has no plans to leave the realm.
He has caught the competition bug, however.
“All of us on the show did,” he says. “We’re all looking for other things to do with the network because we all had such a great time. It was a completely new world for us and the way we were treated by everyone, at every step of the way, was really amazing.”