The French approach has been taken to an extreme by Charm City Cakes, the wild Baltimore bakery featured on the Food Network’s “Ace of Cakes.” Recently, FoodSided spoke to the pair about their Crime Scene Kitchen win, how they put their pastry training to work and how their Crime Scene Kitchen showpiece wowed the judges. While the FOX baking competition focused on solving the sweet clues, a few elements helped Natalie and Luis rise to the top. Their classically trained pastry skills gave them an advantage from the start. Still, Natalie had one big goal with the cake, to catch your eye. She said, “we wanted it to be that showpiece where you walk into a birthday party and you’re like that’s a birthday cake.” From the movement to the cake topper, there was no mistaking that this showpiece was a wow moment. If you enjoy Crime Scene Kitchen, then be sure to tune in each week on Monday, starting at 7 pm CST, where we will see some mysterious treats being made by some of America’s best bakers!

Since it is the Crime Scene Kitchen finale, the reality is that the dessert round was going to be difficult. As Yolanda Gampp said, “expectations are high and there is no tomorrow.” These bakers need to bring the boldness. This week, The Merge happened, so we, for the very first time, saw both the self-taught bakers and the professional bakers baking all at once at a chance for the grand prize! The usual technique starts by creaming the butter and sugar -- a complicated, impressive, highly technical process that consist of putting both ingredients in the mixer on high speed for maybe two minu tes (the butter should be at room temperature, neither cold nor melted). Then you add the eggs one by one and beat for a minute or two. Wow, how hard was that? For the decoration, the three cakes were very different. Thomas and Cathy took a more simple approach. While their cake was elegant, the reality was that it didn’t really scream birthday cake.Finally, you mix the flour with the baking powder and salt in one bowl, and add the vanilla to the milk in another, and slowly beat both mixtures into the butter and egg mixture, alternating the flour and milk, just until the flour is incorporated.

While everyone wishes for the glory and pastry crème, the pastel Thunderdome is unpredictable. Former success does not guarantee that moment in the winning spotlight. Did the pressure become too overwhelming? Did the Crime Scene Kitchen winner shine during the dessert round? Cathy & Thomas won the round, garnering an advantage in the main round with Jay & Thuy-Linh also making a Boston Cream Pie, albeit one that was decidedly more rustic looking. Other teams guessed the dessert as a bakewell tart (Nathan & Anthony), lemon chiffon pie (Erinn & Amanda), almond dacquoise (Caroline & Carolyn), and a Sacher torte (Luis & Natalie). Unfortunately, Emma and Leslie and Lorie and Jason mis-read the chocolate clue. Making chocolate puff pastry was the wrong choice.

Did the Crime Scene Kitchen winner cake it to the limit with their showpiece?

Your basic American yellow cake is made from flour, sweetened with sugar, given structure with eggs, enriched and tenderized with butter, leavened with baking powder and flavored with vanilla and a little salt. You may have all the ingredients to make a cake on hand right now.

For a lighter texture, many recipes add the yolks to the batter separate from the whites, which are beaten and folded into the batter after the flour (I rarely bother). Other recipes mix the sugar with the flour and add the butter, eggs and milk to it, or mix the sugar with the eggs first before beating in the rest. However you do it, the liquid should always be added to the flour last and the batter should be mixed just until the flour is absorbed. The baking team eliminated was Emma and Leslie. The uneven layers were their downfall. After all the tears in last week’s challenge, just making the finale was a positive. Unfortunately, the execution let them down. Did the Crime Scene Kitchen winner cake it to the limit with their showpiece? Throughout the season, the baking teams adapted to solving the clues. While some teams were more successful than others, this baking competition is unlike other food television shows. Combining execution, knowledge and skill are the keys to earning the victory. The crime scene kitchen dessert this round was a semi-naked spiced carrot cake with coconut cream cheese frosting. The modeling chocolate and vegetables left out were for molding decorative corn, peas, and tomatoes to top the four-layer confection. Of the four carrot cakes, Cathy & Thomas were the only ones to correctly frost their cake as "semi-naked", thus winning the main challenge as well. Luis & Natalie correctly guessed it was a naked cake, but decided to show off their skills and make a "farmer's market bushel" cake decorated with not only the modeling chocolate vegetables but wood planks and barrels, complete with hoops. It was an impressive cake, but not the decoration the judges were looking for.Video can't be loaded because JavaScript is disabled: First Look | CRIME SCENE KITCHEN (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gnv3rybSG7Q)