This is it! I hate when it’s over, but I love the Spring Baking Championship finale. Tonight, we find out who wins the $50,000 and who was crowned the Spring Baking Champion.
The race to $50,000 ends TONIGHT on the season finale of #SpringBakingChampionship at 9|8c! pic.twitter.com/Pq3o9Gryza
— Food Network (@FoodNetwork) April 30, 2018
The final three contestants are Caleb, Cristina, and Nacho. Out of the three, I didn’t see Nacho making it this far, so he could spoil it for my favorite, Cristina.
In the first heat to earn an advantage in the final main heat, dragon fruit, rambutan, finger limes, cherimoya, jackfruit and African horned melon appear. Each contestant must take two ‘ugly’ ingredients and transform them into one dessert.
Caleb gets dragon fruit and finger limes and decides to make a lime coconut macaroon and a dragon fruit semi semifreddo. Caleb struggles with his dragon fruit semifreddo as the eggs and the dragon fruit don’t mix well together. So now he’s doing a dragon fruit gelatin.
Cristina gets jackfruit and rambutan. She decides to make jackfruit curd with lime tart dough and rambutan gelee. With thirty minutes left, Christina’s shells aren’t even in the oven yet. Come on, Cristina!
Nacho is making a French macaron with cherimoya and African horned melon ice cream. He makes his macaron with this fancy swirl that looks cool. Nacho says he’s concerned that the cherimoya flavor isn’t coming out in the ice cream, so he adds more.
All the contestants struggle coming up to the last few seconds and barely finish in time.
It’s judging time!
Cristina is up first and her tartlette goes over well with Nancy who calls it beautiful. Duff says the flavor of the jackfruit curd is spot on. Lorraine doesn’t think the gelee has the rambutan flavor and Nancy says it’s hard to get to the flavor from that fruit. They love her curd.
Caleb is up next and Nancy isn’t fond of the colors, while Lorraine calls it ‘different.’ Duff likes the macaroon, but he isn’t tasting finger lime. Lorraine thinks it’s a really interesting plate of food.
Nacho is up last and Duff loves his swirls in the macaron, except the ice cream is a bit soft. nancy says the macaron is a little undercooked. Lorraine is getting the cherimoya, but Duff said the execution wasn’t there.
The winner of the preheat is CRISTINA!
The contestants must now make geode cake and candy crystals from scratch. Cristina’s advantage can assign the colors of the geo and she chooses blue. Amber goes to Caleb and purple for Nacho. They have five hours!
Nacho: He says he’s never made a geode cake before and chooses to make an Italian cream cake with blackberry coulis and pecan praline filling.
Cristina: She said the blue reminded her of her grandmother so she’s sticking to her Cuban flavors and making a vanilla bean cake with cream cheese mascarpone and guava filling. Cristina is struggling with a cake that’s too warm to decorate so she has to start over. Oh no!
Caleb: He is making an amaretto genoise cake with apricot jam and almond buttercream.
While Caleb and Christina are using fondant, Nacho is using buttercream, which is a bit risky.
Of course this is when the host decides to interview Cristina, making her get all misty. Cristina has never made candy crystals from scratch, so this is a little scary. I love Cristina’s colors of her cake. I like Nacho’s colors too, so this competition is going to be tough.
It’s judging time!
These cakes are phenomenal! Our contestants could be gemologists! #SpringBakingChampionship
— Nancy Fuller (@FullerFarmer) May 1, 2018
Caleb is up first. He talks about the emotional presence of his family in the kitchen thanks to the geode. Lorraine said that the cake looks well thought out, while Duff said he could’ve done more shades of the rocks. The judges absolutely love the cake and said he nailed the texture of the cake. Lorraine wanted more almond and Nancy agrees.
Nacho is up next and Duff likes the buttercream. Lorraine said it’s a beautiful looking cake. Nancy loves the buttercream and says the cake is delicious. Duff says the cake is delicious. Nancy is still fawning over the cake as Nacho leaves.
The judges are already talking about Cristina’s cake as she comes in. Nancy said that when she looks at the cake it was striking, but it doesn’t go as deep as it could. Duff likes the cheesiness and said it goes well with the guava, but that her cake got dense. nancy loves the cake. Lorraine loves the cheese frosting but said that she wishes it was a little less heavy.
Maybe if I don’t announce the winner of the Spring Baking Championship, they’ll keep going with the show? LOL Nah, guess not. So here is the winner…
NACHO!
Beyond AMAZING!!! This was the best!! https://t.co/pcj8UYMh6U
— NachoAguirreM (@NachoAguirreM) May 1, 2018
You proved me wrong dude. You deserve it! Congratulations!
