IN Bethel Park Summer 2016 | Page 18

INPERSON ICING ON THE CAKE Bethel Park Resident Takes the Cake on Food Network’s ‘Cake Wars’ BY HEATHER HOLTSCHLAG Tristan Slater (left) and Emily Bartlow in Food Network’s “Cake Wars” kitchen. 16 724.942.0940 TO ADVERTISE | Bethel Park B ethel Park resident and Grove City College senior Tristan Slater can still remember the smell of her mother’s cinnamon rolls wafting through the air on Christmas morning. It was a recipe that was passed down by Slater’s grandmother. “Before I could even read, I was begging to help my mom roll them out, fascinated with watching the dough rise,” she recalls. Slater has had an interest in baking for as long as she can remember, particularly with pies, cakes and cookies, and especially “healthy” baking options. “My mom was a bit of a ‘health nut,’ and I was the guinea pig, so to speak. And no matter what ingredients she used — chickpea flour, tapioca flour, honey or dates — it would always turn out delicious.” Slater recently got the opportunity of a lifetime to showcase her love of baking, as she and college roommate Emily Bartlow appeared on the February 1 episode of the Food Network show “Cake Wars.” Even more exciting, they won the grand prize of $10,000, a secret they were under contract to keep from the time the show finished taping in October until it aired in February. That was perhaps the most difficult part of the process. “Keeping a five-month secret of that magnitude is no easy feat!” Slater said. “It was all I could do not to tell friends and family and let them in on the excitement that we not only were on the show, but that we had won! We did both tell our parents, however, as it’s pretty difficult as a 21-year-old student to just jet off to California with