A Fort Smith, Ark., cake decorator with Harps Food Stores recently made his national television debut.
Competing on the Food Network Challenge’s “Christmas Classics Cakes” episode, the two-person team led by award-winning cake designer Danny Lane was challenged to make a unique Christmas-themed cake.
A large gathering of Harps associates, family and friends met at the Holiday Inn in Fort Smith to watch the show as Lane competed and won the eight-hour competition against three other teams.
“We broke the mold a long time ago as a supermarket bakery and this really just shows the nation what this community already knows—that we do great cakes like any boutique shop can do,” said Lane.
The show had been pre-recorded and only Lane and his assistant Rebecca Woodard, another nationally acclaimed cake designer with Harps, knew the results until the show was aired. Lane was awarded $10,000, which he shared with Woodard.
“There’s stuff we haven’t done yet,” said Woodard. “That’s kind of what’s on our horizon, cakes that we haven’t done. Just more things to wow people so they can say ‘that’s from a grocery store?’ And I say, ‘Yeah, it is from Harps, maybe nowhere else.”
Chosen based on a submission of a cake design portfolio and a video interview, Lane and Woodard represent the first occasion of supermarket cake decorators competing on the nationally televised broadcast.