Short Pump Cupcake Bakery Auditions For TV Show On Food Network

A locally-owned Short Pump cupcake bakery is in the running to be casted in a national television show on Food Network, competing against other cupcake bakeries across America in a show called Cupcake Wars. The owners of Frostings, in the Short Pump Station shopping center near Trader Joe’s, say they’re up for the challenge, should […]

March 3, 2010; 2:50 PM • by Trevor Dickerson

The show’s producer contacted co-owners Matt Fraker and Jason Ferrell last week and invited them to audition. ”All they would tell us is they were casting for Cupcake Wars and that if we were interested, we should send them a picture of the chef, assistant, one of the store and a couple of our cupcakes,” Ferrell said. They sent these the same day, and received notification that they made it to the next step, which required the filming of a 3-5 minute video (below) highlighting their business.

“The producer was adamant that we use the video to highlight who the chef and assistant (Matt Fraker and Tricia Argoe) are as people. She wanted a glimpse into them, their lives outside of cupcake baking and what kind of charisma they have been working together.” Ferrell said they were less interested in the actual process of baking their cupcakes for this segment. Fraker and Ferrell contacted local video production company Mediapond to put together the video on short notice and sent it to the network.

“Now that we’ve sent them the video, it moves to the next level of producers. We get the sense that they’re casting for multiple episodes.” Ferrell said Frostings will be notified by the end of March if they’ve made the cut to be featured in an episode of Cupcake Wars.

The premise of the show is they recruit four cupcake bakers, each of whom get to bring an assistant, and put them through a series of challenges. In each round, they are given an assortment of secret ingredients and a time limit to bake their creation. There is a panel of judges who evaluate each contestant on creativity, taste and presentation. After each round, someone is voted off. The winner of the show gets $10,000 and their cupcakes featured are featured at a culinary event.

“It’d be unreal to have a chance to compete on Cupcake Wars,” Ferrell added. “We’re very proud of our cupcakes and we know we can go toe-to-toe with any other cupcake bakery in the Country. Bring it on!”

The audition video the owners sent to the network can be seen in its entirety below.

Click here to view the embedded video.