Cooking for a queen Chefs bake cakes for a sugar czar

If you're going to make a birthday cake for the queen bee of sugar art, you had better bring your "A" game.

Tulsan Kerry Vincent is best known as the director of the Oklahoma State Sugar Art Show, but in recent years she's become famous for judging dozens of Food Network cake challenge competitions.

She's a tough judge who strikes fear into the hearts of cake decorators, deducting precious points for sloppy technique — the Simon Cowell of cake, she's been called. Vincent was not amused when one of the competitors in a previous challenge said the wicked queen cake she was making reminded her of Kerry.

She was amused by the fact that Food Network surprised a bunch of competitors with a Kerry Vincent-themed birthday cake surprise challenge (striking fear into their sugar-crusted hearts).

"It was hilarious," she said.

It was also her idea. During another recent challenge she judged, she joked with one of the producers how funny it would be if she were ever the mystery client who walked out from behind the curtain.

"They would be horrified," she told the producer.

And they were. Vincent's tough standards have dashed the hopes of many a Food Network challenge competitor, especially those who go for grand ideas and forgo clean technique.

Knowing that she prizes precision and sugar skill over all, designing a Vincent-worthy birthday cake should be a snap, right?

Well, contestants only had five minutes to quiz Vincent about her ideal

cake, and they built the cakes in a tight time frame (about eight hours). And Vincent's husband, Doug Vincent, was one of the judges.

Fans will have to wait until the special airs June 14 on the Food Network to see what the competitors came up with, but one of them did come pretty close to the mark, she said.

"We are not so stupid as to expect a person with one assistant to produce the most perfect cake in an eight-hour time period," she said. "But the winning cake did have clean technique."

As for the others...

"We had some that were 'What could they be thinking?' "

But it all makes for great television.

"There were a lot of twists and turns," she said. "People are going to be falling off their chairs laughing."

The special was filmed in Denver. Her actual birthday was last week, but she did not bake herself a cake. Future Food Network challenge competitors take note: If she had made one, it would have been an Australian dirt cake — a decadent, dense chocolate cake that is one of her favorites.

She's sharing the recipe with Tulsa World readers, so start practicing now.

By CARY ASPINWALL World Scene Writer