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QUINCY, ILL. -- Love is...cake.

The Quincy Mall was filled with cake bakers Saturday in light of the YWCA's Cake-A-Palooza. KHQA was in the midst of all the icing to see who won the bake off and who will benefit from it.

Kreative Kakes team Lisa Schreck and her mother, Iris Schultz, took home the Cake-A-Palooza championship.

"It's really exciting. We put a lot of work into it and I'm really glad it turned out so well," Schreck said.

After a three-hour cake competition against three other fierce baking teams, the Kreative Kakes duo came out on top, but it was no easy task.

"It's very nerve-racking," Kristen Yargus said. "You don't really realize what's going on around you because you're trying so quickly to get things done."

Yargus won last year's first Cake-A-Palooza competition and came back this time as a judge. Some competitors may have not taken home the first place trophy, but they helped make a difference in a worthy cause.

"The main thing we're trying to do here is create awareness about homelesness in Quincy," Executive Director of YWCA Mary Muehlenfeld said.

Cake-A-Palooza is sponsored by the Young Women's Christian Association. All proceeds benefit programs like Girl Empowerment and Supportive Housing.

"All the extreme cakes are donated to the shelters and the soup kitchens here in town," Muehlenfeld said. "So they'll be going to Quanada, Madonna House, Salvation Army, Horizons Soup Kitchen later [Saturday]."

"I love a challenge with the cakes," Schreck said. "Anything you can do and is unique so this is definitely a challenge and it goes to a good cause."

KHQA's also been a proud sponsor of the event for the last two years. Our own Lindsey Boetsch and Tegan Orpet also competed and took second in the Taste Test round.