The Big Bake-Off (Part 1)

Allez cuisine! The heat will be on...

The Intro
Five weeks ago, a man's fantasy became reality in a form never seen before: Pearce Hostel Kitchen Stadium, a giant cooking arena. The motivation for spending his fortune (*cough cough*) to create Kitchen Stadium was to encourage others to bake cakes for him, true artistic creations which he would then devour himself. To realise his dream, he started choosing the top student chefs from all Cambridge, and he named his students the Iron Grad Students, invincible grads of culinary skills.

The Contenders

In the red corner, we have yours truly, food blogger with Hungry the Ate, and a self-confessed novice at baking. Quite the expert at eating though. Semper Eat'em!
Pre-bakeoff quote: "The last thing I put in an oven was some round bottom flasks in my lab which needed drying."

And in the blue corner, it's the defending champion, known only as the TGV. She's travelling at the speed of light, baking at 200 degrees, that's why they call her Miss Farenheit. Reputed to be able to execute a recipe perfectly the first time she tries dominates it.
Pre-bakeoff quote: "Tell him I'm using tomatoes. Tomato is a fruit. Psyche!" (may be fictional)

The Theme Ingredient
Chairman M+M unveils the theme ingredient for this battle... kyo no tema wa, kore desu:

As it happens, blackforest cake is vetoed as a theme for being too restricted. So the theme is reannounced:

Any cake with chocolate, fruit and cream!

The Battle
It's 3pm on a Saturday, so bang a gong and we are on in this epic cake battle! The early going seems to be a little rough for the challenger. It appears that YH has underestimated just how much his cake will rise - it's like a little vomcano giving rise to a second smaller cake at the base of the oven. Incredible!

YH: And then I just chundered everywah... disgusting.

Meanwhile on the human bullet train, the TGV appears to be making plenty of noise with an electric mixer. Out comes some wonderfully coloured raspberry panna cotta:

TGV panna cotta in a box

Back to the challenger, and he seems to be making faux cherries! I can report that the 'seed' is a hazelnut, hidden within chocolate truffle ganache and coated with cherry glaze.

Faux cherries by YH

Returning to the other side, it looks as though TGV's plans are starting to become clear after a serious profiterole manufacturing task. The choux pastries are filled with the panna cotta we saw before, and coated in chocolate. My mouth is beginning to water already...

TGV is a profiterole-making machine

In YH's kitchen, some serious layer action going on - it looks like a coating of raspberry jam is going down.

YH lays down the law, and the raspberries

TGV is almost done with her croquembouche, assembling the profiteroles with fruit and caramel.

TGV's tower of yum

The last minute decorations are happening on YH's side as well. It's a case of situation substitution with the candy floss, using honey instead of corn syrup, but it looks like the bet has paid off!

Shiny sugar strings on YH's side

And that's it, the cake baking battle is O-VAH!!!

The Final Products!
The challenger YH presents a dark chocolate cake flavoured with a hint of coffee, cayenne pepper and cinnamon, sandwiching a layer of fruity raspberry reduction. The whole affair is coated in vanilla buttercream frosting, doused with liquid chocolate ganache and topped with a sugar nest of faux cherries.

TGV counters with an immaculate croquembouche of chocolate profiteroles filled with a raspberry panna cotta. The entire profiterole stack is studded with cherries, raspberries, mulberries and strawberries, and wrapped up together in golden strings of caramel floss.

The Verdict
What do you think the result will be? You'll have to wait until next time, on Part 2 of the Big Bake-Off!

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I figured this was pretty long so I've split it up into two. Part 2 will have the judging criteria, scores, statistical analysis (yeah baby) and recipes for my cake at least (I don't have TGV's recipe unfortunately).

Apologies if you aren't familiar with the original dubbed Japanese Iron Chef. Wait, why am I apologising? Shame on you! Go watch it now. It's awesome, I promise you.

Stay tuned!