Kick Off The Summer With The Cake Boss

Monday night, as you return from your three-day weekend and get ready to go back to work, ease into the workweek with the first episode of the third season of Cake Boss. As part of the TLC Summer, Buddy "Cake Boss" Valastro will kick off the network's summer programming on Monday night at 9 p.m. 

The third season of Cake Boss will air on Monday night, at 9 p.m. EST. It will help kick off the TLC Summer, which also includes a new season of Say Yes To The Dress and a new show about two sisters who start a cupcake business in Washington, D.C. 

"It's my most authentic season," said Valastro on Tuesday night, as he sipped one of the mini appletinis the waiters handed the crowd. "It's natural ... it feels right."

And the cakes will be bigger than ever before. So big even, that Valastro is moving the ovens to a higher floor of the Washington Street bakery.

Of course, the TLC event—which was held in Manhattan—featured a cake by Valastro. He said he didn't have much time to make it, and did it in one day. 

Valastro has had a busy couple of weeks with trips to Chicago and Los Angeles. In Chicago he met Oprah Winfrey, a lifelong dream. Calling Oprah the "most powerful woman in the world," he said the visit was amazing and she turned out to be very nice.

The new season will be 26 episodes long, and the crew will travel to Italy. 

"Back to the roots," Valastro said. 

Among the cakes you can expect in the upcoming season are a life size replica of Valastro's wife Lisa (which was made in the W Hotel in Hoboken), a cake in the form of a mechanical bull (which also moves as such), a cake in the form of the stock market's closing bell and a birthday cake for Valastro's 3-year-old son.

In Monday's episode, Valastro will make a large cream puff cake—in honor of his father—to celebrate the retirement of his mother. But, rest assured, she will still be involved with the show. 

Patch will be publishing re-caps of the Cake Boss episodes on Tuesday mornings during the third season.