UNIVERSITY PARK, Texas — Amanda Walker, who works as an accreditation manager for the University Park Police Department also has a home baking business called It’s a Cakewalk, and her team recently won The Big Bake holiday competition on the Food Network. Since the show aired, Walker says her baking business has seen more than 1,000 new subscribers on its social media accounts.
“I have gotten several inquiries for orders!” Walker added. “So, there is a lot going to be happening in 2024!”
In the show, baking teams had five hours to design, bake and decorate holiday-themed cakes, as People Newspapers reported. The competition was judged by Ben-Israel, Eddie Jackson, and Danni Rose. Danny Romero of Danny’s Cakes and Sweets and Alexa Contreras Nuñez of Alexa’s Pastries were also on Walker’s team, the Mistletotes. As the winning team, they received a $10,000 prize.
Walker says a casting director for the Big Bake reached out to her after seeing her cakes on social media, and the show filmed in Toronto. In keeping with the contest’s “wreck the halls” theme, her team’s design involved a leaning Christmas tree with several elves on the tree.
Walker, who’s worked for the city of University Park for about six years, says she made her first foray into novelty cakes about 11 years ago when she made an R2-D2 cake for her son’s birthday. At the time, she says she learned about cake decorating via YouTube videos.
Walker says she was inspired to learn more about cake structure after her son’s cake fell over in the parking lot of the event space for his birthday, and she became determined that she wouldn’t have another cake fall. She took her first cake class in 2021.
