The Food Network’s Spring Baking Championship is down to eight contestants and you can just feel the competition getting hotter. Wait, that’s the oven. Seriously folks, I do love this show and enjoy watching the competition. Last week, I told you that this is my order of who I think will win:
Cristina
Ruby
Deepal
Caleb
Aaron
Heather
Jessica
Nacho
This week, the first competition pairs up the contestants to create a randomly assigned cream pie. Remember that this is only for an advantage in the main heat, not an elimination challenge. Ruby and Nacho created a dulce de leche banana cream pie with a buttermilk crust. While it’s tasty, Nancy wanted it a little prettier in decoration. Caleb and Heather made a peanut and cherry cola pie. Duff calls it cute but Nancy wants more flavor and so does Lorraine. Deepal and Jessica got custard pie and made a vanilla bean limoncello custard and honeycomb. It looks pretty, but they can’t taste the limoncello. Cristina and Aaron made a stone fruit pie and Duff doesn’t think it looked finished and Nancy says that the crust is undercooked.
Everyone loves a challenge — especially on #SpringBakingChampionship!!
— Nancy Fuller (@FullerFarmer) March 27, 2018
The winner of the pre-heat: Ruby and Nacho.
It sucks that all I can do is describe the dishes to you and we can’t taste anything. Sorry if your mouth is watering. So is mine.
The main heat is keeping the teams going and each team gets a picnic basket with three picnic ingredients that aren’t easily combined — sounds like Chopped — they can’t make the same dessert as their partner and will be judged individually, but must use the same ingredients from the same basket — got it? Okay, good. Nacho and Ruby’s advantage? They get a 10-minute head start.
Nacho and Ruby: Their basket includes potato chips, peaches and salami. Nacho decides to make a potato chip dacquoise — a meringue-based cake often made with nut flour — wish fresh peaches and candied salami. Ruby has decided to make a peach hand pie with salami puff pastry.
Heather and Caleb: Their basket includes cucumber, red bell pepper and yogurt dip. Caleb is making a roasted corn cake with red pepper marmalade. The yogurt dip is being put into the batter. Heather, who has already gotten on Caleb because she trusted his peanut cherry cola pie that didn’t go over well, is making a pate a choux with the yogurt and roasted peppers and whatever else she seems to want to throw in. Heather is definitely unsure about her dessert.
Deepal and Jessica: Their basket includes watermelon, prosciutto, and olives. Jessica is making a green olive and blue cheese scone and a blue cheese stuffed fig with a candied prosciutto wrap. Deepal, who is calling out ‘how am I going to do this,’ is making an olive chiffon cake with watermelon gelee and a candied prosciutto rose.
Cristina and Aaron: Their basket includes breadsticks, goat cheese and mushrooms. Aaron is making a breadstick shortbread with goat cheese and apricot jam filling and a mushroom gelee. Cristina is making an olive oil cake with a mushroom apricot mousse and goat cheese and almond breadstick crunchy “somewhere.”
Here come the problems! Nacho has burned the bottom of his dacquoise — how is that possible when he wasn’t working on anything else! And now comes the twist — they have to make an ice cream as well that complements their basket desserts. Ruby and Nacho decide on a potato chip ice cream, but he needs to worry about his cake that now has become a potato chip and pecan sponge cake.
Jessica and Deepal decide to make a fig jam ice cream, while Heather and Caleb go with a cucumber, dill and elderflower ice cream. I’m not a big fan of Heather, right now. Aaron and Cristina decide on a hazelnut ice cream (yum!).
With 10 minutes left, Nacho’s cakes are out and ready and now it’s time to assemble. Deepal, on the other hand, had gelee that didn’t set and now looks like a glaze, so that’s what she’s going to try and call it. Time’s up!
On to the judging: remember, they are judged separately on their desserts, but worked together on their ice cream.
Nacho and Ruby: First up is Ruby’s peach turnover with salami puff pastry and bourbon caramel. The judges debate the ice cream taste and they seem to like Ruby’s turnover. Nacho’s potato chip and pecan sponge cake and Lorraine gets on him for uneven cakes. Duff laughingly said “I think your cake needs a little more salami.” Nancy likes the cake.
Caleb and Heather: Caleb’s dill cream corn cake with red pepper marmalade is up first and the judges absolutely love it. Their cucumber, dill and elderflower goes over really well. Heather’s cream puff with cucumber kiwi elderflower relish and chantilly cream. Duff calls it beautiful and says it’s refreshing and works.
Jessica and Deepal: Jessica’s tapas picnic dessert with three items Lorraine calls thinking out of the box. Nancy likes the scone, but Lorraine says the fig isn’t stuffed with enough of blue cheese. Deepal’s olive oil cafe with watermelon glaze Lorraine calls ‘interesting.’ Duff said the watermelon isn’t really working and the chiffon is mush. Oh no, Nancy said, “as my husband would say ‘you don’t have to serve this again.’ Ouch.
Cristina and Aaron: Up first is Aaron’s breadstick shortbread with apricot jam and mushroom gelee and Lorraine calls it ‘different,’ in a good way. Duff said the mushroom doesn’t work, but the cookie is great. Nancy thinks the mushroom gelee is delicious. Cristina’s olive oil cake with an apricot mushroom mousse is lacking color, says Cristina. Lorraine said the dessert works and so does Duff. When she leaves, the judges are saying “so good!”
Heather’s cream puff and Caleb’s corn cake are the top two with Caleb winning the round.
Also safe are Cristina, Aaron, Jessica and Ruby. That leaves Deepal and Nacho up for elimination. Unfortunately, going home this week is Deepal. Damn. So did I change my list based on this week’s challenge? Yeah. I honestly think that Caleb is a bigger force than I gave him credit for, so I’m moving him up to second place.
Cristina
Caleb
Ruby
Deepal
Aaron
Heather == as much as she was a top finisher this week, I find her frazzled easily, so I’m not sure yet.
Jessica
Nacho
Until next week’s Spring Baking Championship!
