Making specialty cakes can be such a drag. Just ask Buddy Valastro, star of the popular TLC show "Cake Boss." In a Christmas episode that debuted in early December -- but re-airs regularly on the cable network and can be downloaded on iTunes and Amazon -- the tough-talking Cake Boss and his Italian-American band of bakers from New Jersey are hired to create a cake for Minnesota's own Miss Richfield 1981.

Of course, for the flamboyant drag queen, no ordinary cake will do. She wants a cake big enough to pop out of and surprise her audience for a holiday show in New York City. The cake's construction mostly goes OK in the episode, "Colorful Characters & Christmas Costumes," until Buddy and his crew arrive at the theater. The giant confection won't fit through the door.

No problem, says a delighted Miss Richfield: The audience can be surprised by her pop-up appearance on the sidewalk before going inside for the show. She climbs inside, and four beefy bakers labor to reset the massive top layer. "OK, are we straight?" calls out Mauro Castano, the burliest of the doughboys. From inside the cake comes a tiny muffled voice: "Oh, I wouldn't say that!" Delicious!