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BethAnn Goldberg, who bakes amazing cakes in her Studio Cake shop in the Willows neighborhood of Menlo Park, whipped up an especially spectacular creation for the Food Network's Cake Challenge — and took home $10,000 in cash for her efforts. The challenge aired last Sunday, Nov. 1.

The four competing cake designers based their confections on characters from "The Simpsons" television show. Ms. Goldberg's Bart Simpson was spinning on a barrel full of candy, based on an episode of the show, she said after the challenge aired. (Contestants are sworn to secrecy before the program airs on Sunday nights.)

"I had a crazy good time doing this cake!" she said. Her surprise assistant for the day was Andrew Blumberg, "a self-proclaimed Simpsons Superfan," she wrote in an e-mail.

This was Ms. Goldberg's second appearance on the show. For the first, which aired in June, she and her assistant, Arlene Freeman, competed with a creation based on Princess Fiona, the ogre princess from the book "Shrek," by Willian Steig.

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