- Written by Alex de Campi, Art by Carla Speed McNeil
Pinkie Pie is entering the Equestria Super Chef Championship against other bakers in Equestria, but attempts to mentally cram as many recipes as she can before going there. Meanwhile, Applejack is delivering a pie for Granny Smith as part of the backstage catering for the event. As the show starts, AJ is mistaken for one of the entrants in the show, Marine Sandwich, who tries to take her proper spot but is kicked off stage, and she vows to get revenge. In the first round, where the contestants are judged on a pre-made dish, Pinkie realizes she forgot to bring anything in her haste to remember her recipes, while AJ wins thanks to the pie she brought.
During intermission, Pinkie and AJ meet with another competitor, Toffee Truffle, who is trying to win the prize money to reopen a restaurant in Dodge City, and both Pinkie and AJ agree to do their worst to allow Toffee to win. Despite using food from the garbage to make up the desserts for the next round, Pinkie still manages to win. Before the final round, Toffee tells them she appreciates their help but she'd rather compete fair and square.
The final round has the competitors make their favorite food; AJ presents a simple apple, while Pinkie produces a number of pies with which she begins to throw around the stage, neither of which impress the judges. Toffee's dessert, however, has impressed them but before they can announce the winners, Marine bursts in with a fondant gun, freezing many of the competitors and crowd. Toffee and Pinkie use Toffee's sticky dessert and a portable party cannon to clog up Marine's gun, stopping her madness. The judges award Toffee the grand prize for both a tasty and practical dessert, with Pinkie and AJ happy for her success.
This issue provides examples of:
- Abnormal Ammo: Marine Sandwich produces a weapon that shoots fondant, which traps those it hits.
- And I Must Scream: Parodied. Marine Sandwich rants about how she'll trap everypony in her icing forever, and the ponies she "freezes" all bear pretty shocked expressions (including Marine herself, when the frosting gun backfires)...and then when Marine is defeated, Pinkie easily frees everypony...by eating the icing. She even says it tasted good!
- Circle of Shame: After Pinkie Pie succumbs to performance anxiety, costing her the first round of the contest, she imagines all the baking ingredients laughing at her.
- The Comically Serious: Vermouth Roux is a female Sam the Eagle, totally not approving of this silliness and taking very strange things at face value.
- Continuity Nod: Pinkie produces a Z&R Mark 4 portable party cannon from her hair Hammerspace. The Pinkie microseries comic identified her normal party cannon as a Z&R Mark 3.
- Covers Always Lie: One of the covers have AJ and Pinkie apparently going against each other in the competition. However, in the story, AJ not only is not opposing Pinkie in any way, but she wasn't supposed to be in the competition in the first place.
- Flat "What": Applejack reacts to a Pinky and the Brain Shout-Out from Pinkie with a confused "what?".
- Exactly What I Aimed At: Pinkie and Toffee fire a party cannon full of pastries at Marine Sandwich, and seemingly miss... except they actually meant to clog up her frosting gun, causing it to self-destruct and trap her in the icing.
- Getting the Boot: Marine gets this twice on her attempts to discredit Applejack from security. Exaggerated in that she is bucked by two guards at the same time (meaning that she is getting kicked by four hooves) and that both guards were unicorns that could have used their magic to remove her from the place in a more dignified manner. It's no wonder why she got insane by the climax of the story.
- Hoist by His Own Petard: Marine Sandwich gets "frozen" in her own icing when her gun explodes.
- Jerkass Has a Point: As unhinged as Marine Sandwich is, she DOES have every right to be upset with Applejack taking her place (albeit accidentally) as she did earn the spot that Applejack took. The fact that Applejack tried to sabotage herself, which was also going to affect Marine's credibility as a chef, and that she keeps getting humiliated with every attempt to prove her claims, only makes it worse for her mental health.
- Jerk with a Heart of Gold: The security ponies are nice to Applejack due to them thinking she is the real Marine Sandwich, implying that they would have treated Marine Sandwich better had they known who she was. However, they are quite rough with the real Marine Sandwich, not hesitating to kick her out of the building rather than use their magic for a less painful and humiliating expulsion.
- Karma Houdini: Unless they were frozen by Marine Sandwich during her rampage, the security ponies get no punishment for kicking her out or failing to stop her rampage.
- Kick the Dog: A variation where the villain is on the receiving end with Marine Sandwich. She is in the physical and metaphorical sense of the trope when the security ponies disregard her claims about her identity and literally kick her out of the building.
- Kung-Fu Wizard: Given how they get rid of Marine Sandwich, it is implied that the security ponies prefer to dispatch troublemakers by kicking them with their hind legs rather than using their magic.
- Large Ham: Everyone, as normal. Applejack and Toffee Truffle stand out for being fairly normal.
- Large-Ham Announcer: The announcer at the Equestria Super Chef Competition, whose cutie mark is literally a large ham.
- Mad Artist:
- Marine Sandwich is a "food performance artist" who seems to be a bit unhinged. She goes berserk when she thinks Applejack deliberately impersonated her, and at the climax attacks the contest with a frosting gun.
- Blade Sparxx is clearly a pyromaniac masquerading as a cook.
- Mistaken for Special Guest: Applejack gets roped into the contest after being mistaken for one of the contestants.
- Palette Swap: Take Fluttershy and swap out all the yellows and pinks for lots and lots of gray and you've got Marine Sandwich. Summer Van Der Hoof looks a lot like her too. She's even a fairly similar color.
- Poor Communication Kills: If the staff had actually listened to Applejack, they could have avoided Marine's rampage.
- Seen It All: Vermouth Roux suffers from this so badly that she approves of Pinkie's garbage coated pickles just because they're actually something different and exiting.
- Shout-Out: Evan Dorkin's Milk and Cheese make a cameo in Pinkie's imagined baked goods ridicule panel.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: In spite of them being present to get rid of Marine Sandwich in their previous attempts to enter the competition, the security ponies are not present in her last attempt to enter the story. Whether it was because she froze them off-screen before or during the attack or if they were not present at the time is never clarified.
- Wide Eyes and Shrunken Irises: This is Marine Sandwich's reaction when she realizes her frosting gun is about to explode. It's literally frozen on her face afterwards.
- Woobie, Destroyer of Worlds: After repeatedly being assaulted and humiliated due to Mistaken Identity, Marine Sandwich finally snaps and seeks revenge against everypony involved in the competition.
