As Christmas tunes played softly at the Palace Theatre Tuesday night, the crowd gradually settled into the plush, red seats, anticipating the arrival of TLC’s Cake Boss Buddy Valastro.

Around 7:30 pm, Valastro entered from the back of the room to the sound of “I Saw Mommy Kissing Santa Claus” playing over the speakers in the theater.

“Hello Columbus,” Valastro said. “Thanks for the warm welcome. Are you ready for a good time?”

The stage of the Palace Theatre was transformed into a winter wonderland bakery shop for Valastro to share his holiday cake decorating secrets, along with some laughs, with the packed audience.

Valastro’s “Homemade for the Holidays Tour” has been traveling across the country since November, and will continue until the end of December.

The show consisted of Valastro demonstrating his famous cake decorating techniques while sharing behind-the-scenes stories from his show, “Cake Boss,” and answering questions from the audience.

Valastro preluded his famous cake decorating by some “really easy” cupcake decorating.

Using a turntable, he created poinsettia cupcakes at first slowly, so the crowd could learn the technique, and then, to the crowds delight, at a “ramming speed.”

He later showed the audience how to decorate a Santa cake, a snowflake cake, a present cake and a Christmas tree cake – which Valastro decorated in 46 seconds.

“My way to thank my fans for being my fans is to push myself to the brink of insanity when decorating these cakes,” Valestro said.

Throughout the night, Valastro conducted competitions in which audience members could win cupcakes, cakes, T-shirts and gift certificates to Valastro’s New Jersy bakery, Carlo’s Bake Shop.

Some of these contests included cannoli-filling, hula-hooping and a family pie-making race.

The show was family-oriented, with Valastro at one point holding a family’s baby while they competed for a gift certificate.

“The holidays are about family, food and having a good time,” Valastro said.

Nick Ramagnano and his daughter Mikayla, 7, of New Albany said they enjoyed the show.

“I’m a big fan because he taught me how to bake,” Mikayla Ramagnano said.

Heather Brandt of Piqua, owner of JG Cupcakes, was also incredibly excited to see her role model live.

“I watch his show (‘Cake Boss’) all the time,” Brandt said. “(Tonight was) very informative, he was very personable, and I like how he incorporated the families into the show.”