Duff vs Buddy: Who is Better?
In the Food Network television show “Buddy vs. Duff”, Buddy Valastro, a celebrity baker, and Duff Goldman, a well-known pastry chef, compete against each other in various challenges to see who is the king of cakes.
Buddy Valastro is an American baker and owner of Carlo’s Bakery. He is mostly known for the reality show “Cake Boss” which premiered in 2009. On the other hand, we have Duff Goldman who is a chef and artist known for his outstanding and creative approach to food. Like Buddy, he participates in the reality show “Ace of Cakes” set in his bakery Charm City Cakes.
The program Duff vs. Buddy was released on March 10, 2019, and about a year later Food Network released season 2 of this program. During the episodes of each season, Buddy and Duff compete against each other by using their creativity to create extraordinary cakes. First is a series of mini-challenges that takes them out of their comfort zone (like making a lot of donuts to sell) followed by a cake-off challenge where they have to create a themed cake for an event. Until now, there have been two seasons; one in 2019 and another in 2020.
The first season consisted of six episodes in which the pastry chefs Sherry Yard and Keagan Gerhard assisted as the judges of the competition. The winner was determined according to the number of points accumulated throughout each challenge. During the first season, the maximum points they could get per challenge were 25 and there were five standards. They were qualified in design, difficulty, the representation of the theme, execution, and creativity. The one who had the most points in total won the challenge and at the end the points of each week were added to conclude who was the winner. On season one the winner was Duff Goldman in the company of his assistant Geof Manthrone.
During the second season things changed a lot. Starting by the fact it was no more a competition between two bakers but a competition between two teams. During the first season, the two bakers could just choose an assistant to accompany them through the challenges yet this time, it was multi-person teams. Besides this, the judges for this season were Kimberly Bailey, Florian Bellanger, and Waylynn Lucas. In addition, the score system changed. The maximum number of points they could get during each challenge was 30 points although with no explanation about the breakdowns. This time, the winner was Buddy Valastro in the company of his team which fluctuated through the season.
Now that you know about the program, we should talk about characteristics that make each baker unique. Starting with Buddy, we should point out that he always seeks to do extraordinary things with his cakes. He especially focuses on the size; the bigger the better. Most of his cakes are enormous and include fascinating details that leave the client speechless.
On the other hand we have Duff Goldman. In contrast to Buddy, Duff tries to focus on just one element and make it as detailed as possible. The details he gives to each of his cakes is amazing as it gives personality and feelings to the figure (animal, person, etc.). Besides this, he tries to include special effects of some type of thing that allows the public to interact with the cake.
It is important to keep in mind that Buddy and Duff are not the only ones making the cake but a team is also behind all the hard work. It will be great to also give the team credit for their work.
Based on this, who do you think is better, Duff or Buddy? From this point forward, I will give my personal opinion about who I think is the best baker. I will establish some criteria for making this judgement. I will create some standards to help me create some standards to help me judge and decide who is the best baker.
My first standard is creativity. I think creativity is the most essential thing when we talk about baking cakes. Creativity is widely used in baking especially when thinking about the design the cake will have. When a cake has a creative design, it is sure your public will find it astonishing. In a bakery there are various aspects you can be creative with. There are no limits for creativity while elaborating a cake. When talking about Duff and Buddy, I think they are both pretty creative when elaborating their cakes. I think they try their best to be creative in all aspects possible. Although Duff tries to be more creative in the aspect of special effects, Buddy is creative when it comes to the size of the cake. I think Buddy will win this section because Buddy creates new designs for each of his cakes and he even uses creative ingredients to give different kinds of texture to the cake. Duff is also creative and he even makes incredible cakes that are super realistic. Yet if we looked at this in another way, we could say he just recreates something that exists but in a cake. This gives Buddy an advantage in this decision.
Next we move on into the category of details. Details are extremely important when it comes to decorating a cake. Details are never too much in a cake. The more details the cake has, the more realistic and astonishing it is. Duff and Buddy have both great dominance when it comes to details. Buddy is great with implementing key details in cakes, but Duff is definitely better than Buddy with details. In contrast to Buddy, he centers in just one item and gives to it all the details possible for it to be the most realistic it can be. It is so extraordinary the way Duff and his team works with details that you can actually read the figures’ emotions. Like the Yoda in the photo below. Believe it or not, that’s cake!
The next category is difficulty. How difficult can making a cake be? Well, for these bakers it is full of challenges. Completing a cake at this level can be pretty tough and this should be evaluated. How much difficulty is included in the cake? How complex is it? Duff and Buddy really try to make the most extraordinary cake by adding to it plenteous things that make the cake’s difficulty level increase. Some of the things their cakes can do are float, explode, throw fire, talk and even move. In my opinion, the difficulty category is pretty tied up as both of them express a high level of difficulty in various aspects. While Duff’s difficulty level focuses on the special effects and motion, Buddy’s focuses on the enormous size of his cakes.
The decision is split so far. Next thing to evaluate is the design. Which baker does the best designs? I think both of them have great ideas when elaborating a themed cake. For me, they are tied in this area. Both of them have great things although some details leave them in the middle. For example, Duff does pretty simple stuff. He doesn’t complicate things by doing enormous cakes. While his designs are pretty simple and normal, he works a lot with special effects that contribute a lot to the cake. On the other hand Buddy does lots of things, some of them are giant and this makes him rush in some parts of the cake which end up having less details. In this area the two contestants are tied up and until now, we can’t decide who is the best. That’s why we have one more section to settle this.
Finally the last section is special effects. Who would have thought that cakes could move and do various other things? No one! But these cake masters make that possible with the help of others. I think Buddy and Duff are both really intelligent and creative with special effects, although one of them stands beyond the other. Ladies and gentlemen, the baker who is really a master with special effects is… Duff Goldman. Duff implements the most incredible special effects you’ve ever seen. They are truly amazing! Buddy also uses special effects, but in my opinion, Duffs’ go beyond. They are not just “the special effects” but Duff implements them in the context of the cake in an extraordinary way.
This means the best between Duff and Buddy, according to my standards is Duff and I agree with this response. He always wants to take himself and his cakes to the limit. This is what allows the cakes to be fantastic and so realistic you can’t believe that’s a cake. Although, I’m a huge fan of Buddy and really like how he works to solve problems. He is really charismatic and a great leader. Yet the truth is the “King of Cakes” is Duff Goldman.
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