Cupcake Wars

Cupcake Wars is yet another competitive Cooking Show running on Food Network (hosted by Justin Willman), taking cues from Iron Chef and Chopped. Each episode is themed around a grand celebration, with four cupcake makers fighting for the right to have their centerpiece included in the festivities, as well as a $10,000 prize. There are three rounds:

• Taste: In the first round, competitors have 45 minutes to combine nontraditional ingredients following the day's theme into a delicious cupcake. (For instance, a SeaWorld episode tasks them with combining sea salt and seaweed.) Whichever chef impresses the judging panel the least is cut.
• Taste & Presentation: In the second round, the three survivors have 75 minutes to create three different cupcakes, each with its own distinct taste and appearance. One of these cupcakes must include a detail specified at the start of the round, again following the theme.
• Display: In the third and final round, the two left standing must now bake at least 1,000 cupcakes and have them arranged on their custom-made centerpiece within two hours. Fortunately, they have the help of four extra assistants, as well as two expert carpenters who must take the bakers' hastily sketched ideas and make them a reality. The judges then decide which display is worthy of being featured at the event. This last point is key, as a striking layout can let someone who struggled to survive the first two rounds edge out their competition.

Tropes used in Cupcake Wars include:

• Break the Haughty: Contestants start out bragging about their prowess and how they will blow away the competition, only to be harshly criticized by the judges. Occasionally Subverted in that the contestant shown bragging and smirking the most ultimately winds up winning, albeit with a bruised ego.
• Caustic Critic
• Chekhov's Skill: Seda Ashikian, a contestant in the Miss USA cupcake war, said in her intro video that she was familiar with Middle Eastern ingredients. Little did she know that the guest judge was Rima Fakih and the first challenge was to use Middle Eastern ingredients.
• Cooking Show
• Crossover: One episode had Duff Goldman as a guest judge, since the reward was celebrating the 100th episode of Ace of Cakes.
• Don't Explain the Joke: During the Space episode:

Justin: Sixty minutes until one of you gets Pluto'd! (To the judges) Get it? Because Pluto was a planet, and then they said it wasn't?
Candace: Yeah, we get it.

• Forced Meme: The first contestant mentioned under Oh Crap now sells T-shirts in his bakery that read "I forgot the pumpkin".
• Genki Girl: Chloe Coscarelli. Try to find a moment in the challenge where she DOESN'T have a gigantic smile.
• Oh Crap: A common reaction of the bakers. One such instance had one realizing too late that he hadn't included one of the required ingredients -- the first time this had happened on the then-fledgling show!
  • Another memorable moment: after finishing his cupcakes for the second round, just after time ran out, a baker looked at his plate and realized he'd reversed the frostings on two of them -- resulting in an apple cupcake with avocado frosting. (The look one of the judges got when he gave his rundown of the cupcakes without missing a beat was priceless.)
• Pungeon Master: The host, Justin Willman. Expect a bad joke or pun whenever he gives a time warning to the contestants.
• Spoiler Opening: Each opening includes a shot of the two finished setpieces, while avoiding the identities of who survived long enough to create said pieces.
• Underdogs Never Lose: Frequently Invoked; most of the contestants come from small or fledgling businesses, and often refer to themselves as the underdog. Thus, on any given episode you're likely to see three or all four competitors describing themselves as the underdog who's going to surprise everyone and win it all.
  • Chefs with self-imposed limitations, such as keeping vegan or a gluten-free, tend to do well despite that being a big disadvantage.
  • Though that was Subverted during the first champions' showdown: one of the competitors, seeing she was up against Chloe, decided to do her own vegan cupcake... earning the only heavy criticism in that episode and becoming the first to go.
• Up to Eleven: It's become a trend for at least one competitor to try and incorperate all the ingredients during the Taste challenge, as opposed to the required two or three. Results vary.
• X Meets Y: Food Network Challenge meets Chopped.
• Yank the Dog's Chain: One episode had the judges heavily praising all three of the contestants in the second round. When they came back after the deliberation, the host made several leading comments about how "they felt all of you deserved to go on to the final round..." -- giving them some time to react to the suggestion before adding "Unfortunately, they had to eliminate somebody". Made sense given they have only two master carpenters, but still, was the Hope Spot really necessary?