He’s been on the road since Black Friday, stirring up audiences and slathering cakes with buttercream icing.
Buddy Valastro, who stars on TLC’s “Cake Boss,” is scheduled to visit Palace Theatre 7:30 p.m. Tuesday to decorate cakes and gab with the audience as part of his show “Buddy Valastro Live: Homemade for the Holidays Tour.”
In an interview on Ohio State’s Center for the Study and Teaching of Writing’s “Writers Talk,” Valastro discussed “Cake Boss,” his life on tour and advice for students aspiring to enter the baking business.
“My advice is, before I go and spend time and money in culinary school, I would go try to work at a bakery for a month or two,” Valastro said. “The reason being is to make sure that you still truly love it, (and you) want to do it. At the end of the day, it’s not easy work. And if you’re sure that this is what you want to do, that you love it, then I would tell you to go and spend the money for culinary school.”
Valastro said people often “spend money on culinary school and then a year later say, ‘You know, I don’t like this. I don’t want to do it.'”
He went on to address the differences in baking at home and in a bakery, identifying the oven size as the main difference.
“Baking out of your little oven at home and baking at the bakery is night and day,” Valastro said. “First thing, you gotta calibrate your oven, so if you put it on 350 (degrees) that doesn’t mean that it’s on 350 (degrees). You have to get another thermometer, put it there, make sure it’s 350 (degrees). (For) my oven at home, 350 (degrees) was really 360 (degrees), so I had to lower it. And then it had uneven baking, so you had to bake in the middle shelf versus on the top and the bottom shelf, ’cause it would burn at the top and burn in the bottom. So God bless anybody who bakes at home.”
Valastro’s stop in Columbus will focus more on the cake decorating side of his cooking rather than the baking side.
“I’m going to use fondant, I’m going to use buttercream, I’m going to make four to five different cakes,” he said. “I’m going to give people tips and tricks to become more of their own cake boss at home, because I really believe that cake decoration is all about knowing different techniques and being able to do different things, having the right tools.”
Valastro said he’ll be giving away the cakes he makes in the show to audience members.
“I usually look for the fans who are jumping and screaming out of their seat,” he said. “We try to mix it up and take people from all over the theater so it’s fair, but it’s set in holiday music and it’s going to get you in the holiday mood.”
Alexandra Wells, a third-year in nutrition, considers herself “a pretty amazing baker” and has seen about 20 episodes of “Cake Boss.” She said that while she will not be attending the show, it’s exciting that it’s coming to Columbus.
“I like seeing all the effort that goes into making the cakes, how the structures are built and things,” Wells said.
Alexa Hirsch, a second-year in world literature and community leadership, said she would be interested in attending the live show but has a scheduling conflict. If she was able to go, she said she would want to walk away with one of the cakes.
“I would take a million pictures of it,” Hirsch said, “and then I would eat it. I would probably share, but I wouldn’t really want to.”
For Valastro, the best part about touring isn’t the decorating or cake giveaways.
“My favorite part in the show is when people come and they’re like, ‘Wow, (that show was) so much better than I expected,'” he said.
Tickets range from $35.75 to $45.75 and are available at the CAPA Ticket Office and through Ticketmaster.
Valastro’s “Writers Talk” interview is scheduled to air Monday at 7 p.m. on WCRS 102.1 FM and 98.3 FM, online at the “Writers Talk” website, on YouTube and on iTunes.
The Palace Theatre is located at 34 W. Broad St.
