2026 Oscars Tasting Menu: F1

It’s the morning-after the big night, and once again, I was wrong. I think I’ve correctly picked the best picture winner only once, since I started this Oscars Blog Series. But, that’s not what this is about. It’s all about the food…and stress-baking. Baking makes me very nervous as it’s science and exact. It’s extremely rare you can wing it. 

A lot went wrong with this checkerboard cake (or checkered flag in this instance). The white cake turned out fine. The chocolate cakes were dome-like. I thought they would settle with cooling. They didn’t so I had a lopsided cake and I was pressing down the chocolate cake like an overstuffed pillow. To make a checkerboard cake, you need to cut 3-4 rings from each cake and fit them together in alternating patterns, stack and ice each layer and then ice the entire thing. Oh, one or two of the outer-rings broke, so that was also fear-inducing. 

It turned out ok for the picture. But nothing like last year’s cake! I think I’ve made 3 cakes in-a-row for the final installation. I need to find another dessert option as this is not good for my heart and anxiety, lol. Also, maybe the academy can do me a solid and stop nominating 10 films each year. A few of these were not what I think of as great films, or were just merely films that should be watched by a bunch of bros playing drinking games, like F1. 

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