Bake off

Vineland, NJ bakers are feeling burned.

Mayor Robert Romano has asked Hoboken, NJ's Buddy Valastro -- aka the "Cake Boss" on TLC -- to bake something special for Vineland's 150th birthday celebration this weekend.

"A slap in the face" is how the Facebook page of Sweet Life Bakery, on East Landis Avenue in the heart of Vineland, described the culinary outsourcing.

Sweet Life and its supporters are planning a counter-demonstration ("Operation Cake Bomb") of local cake-making prowess during the birthday festivities, which, like the controversial cake itself, are being paid for by a privately funded Blue Ribbon Committee.

As quoted in the Daily Journal newspaper, which broke the story, Romano said some bakery owners are acting in a "juvenile" manner.

"I've had this Mayor's Blue Ribbon Committee for three years…Not one bakery came to me in three years to show their support. Not one. And all of a sudden the bakeries are getting together to try to out show or outdo the 'Cake Boss,'" the mayor told the newspaper.

The cake kerfuffle followed an earlier decision by the Blue Ribbon folks to abandon plans to make the "world's biggest" cake for the celebration; turns out any such confection would have to be hangar-sized to satisfy Guinness.

In any event, "this isn't about a cake," Romano told the Daily Journal.

"This is about the publicity it'll bring to Vineland."

Oh yeah.