Lake Country’s own Reva Alexander-Hawk will be back competing on television again, starting this Sunday, Sept. 13.
An award-winning pastry chef, internationally acclaimed cake artist, television personality, and six-time Food Network champion, Reva owns and operates Merci Beaucoup Cakes, located on Clack Circle just in front of Lake Oconee.
Reva will represent Georgia on the upcoming baking competition, Halloween Wars, which premieres at 9 p.m. Sunday on the Food Network.
She is no stranger to baking under the pressure of competition, cameras and lights. Her previous television credits include a previous series of Halloween Wars, as well as Cake Wars, Cake Wars Champions, Wedding Cake Championship, Duff Till Dawn, The Big Bake, Holiday Gingerbread Showdown, Ridiculous Cakes, and three seasons of WE tv’s Amazing Wedding Cakes.
“The first time I did it, it was a little scary and I was unsure of things,” Reva told the Lake Oconee News and The Eatonton Messenger. “By the second time, I was like ‘ok, I’ve got this. I’ve got this.’ And then by the third, fourth, fifth, sixth time, I’m like, ‘show me the ropes. Let me get in there, give me my mixing bowl and let’s get started!’ So, once you’ve done it a few times, it helps.”
Halloween Wars kicks off its “Back from the Dead” season Sunday with a two-hour premiere featuring returning all-star pumpkin carvers, cake artists and sugar masters hoping to defend their titles while others will be on the hunt for redemption, according to a notice from Food Network. The premiere begins with two rounds of competition, beginning with head-to-head battles that could put even the strongest teams of former champions in jeopardy. As the pressure rises, emotions boil over and the losing teams will face a brutal “Do or Die” round two showdown, and one team will be eliminated.
That is the hardest part of the competition to Reva. Because they’ve all competed against each other before and worked on shows before, a camaraderie has developed between them.
“Everybody that’s been invited to compete is so amazing and there’ll be so much talent in the room,” Reva said. “It’s hard when you walk into a room with all your friends knowing that somebody is going to go home, and thinking is it going to be our team? Is it going to be my best friend’s team? To me, that is the most difficult part of this whole season.
“So to walk into a kitchen and see all your friends, and it’s like, ‘My goodness! How am I going to compete? I want to beat you but I don’t want to beat you because if I do, you’re going to go home. It’s really conflicting. Especially that first time we all get together.”
According to Food Network, this year’s host, Jonathan Bennett, will be joined by judges Shinmin Li and Andrew Fuller. The ultimate award of $30,000 goes to the winning team.
Reva said working quietly by herself in her own kitchen is “just heaven to me. But the excitement of being in the studio with the other teams and cameras all around, that just a whole other ballgame. That’s just a different type of excitement, so I live off of that. I love it.”
A typical day at Merci Beaucoup Cakes in Eatonton is more peaceful. Reva said she’s “a one-woman operation.” She’s the one who takes the orders, doing the shopping, washing the dishes, checking the emails, and fulfilling the orders.
“But when I’m doing television, I get to experience it with other people,” she said.
Reva’s sister, Karyn Huston, helps out at Merci Beaucoup Cakes, and the two of them host events there such as game nights that include tastings of Reva’s latest sweets.
Reva said next month will be her ninth year anniversary of living and working in the Lake Oconee community. She moved from California to be near her parents and sister.
“Oh my gosh, it has grown so much since we moved out here,” she exclaimed. “Back when I was a child, there was no Publix or anything, and we would come out here as a family and go to Reynolds, and we’d be there for Thanksgiving. So, it’s just crazy and incredible that we all live out here now!”
Reva chuckled as she described how she had to change her recipes when she moved from California to Georgia--“Here it tends to be more on the sweeter side of the palate, so I had to sweeten them up some of my recipes. It was just a slight adjustment of flavors. …But my passion is sugar, my passion is chocolate. I’ve been doing this for quite a while now. You constantly want to learn everything as you’re becoming more proficient in all the different skills. It’s just something that you have to be crazy enough to want to do.”
Reva learned her skills at the prestigious California Culinary Academy in San Francisco. From there, she went to Australia, where the cakes impressed her so much, she decided to become a cake maker. “I was like, ‘I want to make these specific cakes,’” she said. “And once you’re in the cake world, then you want to learn everything else. I want to learn more about sugar, I want to learn more about chocolate, so I can use that within the cakes that I bake, and be well-rounded.”
She’s more than ready to get on the Halloween Wars set.
“This Halloween Wars season is going to be the best that’s ever been done,” she said. “The talent that’s in the room, it is just going to knock everybody’s socks off.
Reva encouraged everyone to tune in to the Food Network at 9 p.m. Sept. 13, and also to watch the recap on HBO Max the next day.
“What they will see is going to blow everybody’s minds, because the amount of work that goes into these extraordinary pieces is a sight to behold,” she said.