We are down to the final four on the Spring Baking Championship, which means that next week is the finale. The final four are Cristina; Caleb; Heather and Nacho.
In the first heat, the contestants must bake with avocados, which pair well with other ingredients. The contestants must use either chocolate, lime, orange or ginger. They get one hour to pair up the avocado with a friend and create a dessert. Heather chooses to make an orange meringue with avocado mousse. Cristina is making a chocolate avocado brownie with an avocado mousse center. Nacho is making a lime alfajor, a crumbly Argentinian sandwich cookie, with an avocado matcha middle. Caleb, who got ginger, is making an avocado ginger bread putting with an avocado ice cream.
Once again, Heather is in trouble. Her meringue isn’t cooking as fast as she wanted it to and now she’s panicking about having anything on the plate. This is a regular thing with Heather. She moves them to the convection oven for faster cooking. Cristina is also concerned about her avocado cream cheese mousse so she pipes the mousse on instead.
Spring Baking Championship Judging time: The judges seem confused with Heather’s plate, having to eat a guacamole on its own, yet they really like the look and taste of her meringue. Caleb is up next and Nancy says she isn’t wowed by the presentation. Duff calls it ‘delicious’ while Lorraine calls it ‘beautiful.’ She also said the flavors are there in the bread pudding. Her presentation to make it look like an open avocado goes over well with Nancy and Lorraine loves the brownie, but say says she’s not getting much avocado taste. Duff says the same. Nancy calls Nacho’s cookie “the best thing she ever ate,” and Lorraine calls it “perfect.”
The winner of the first heat: Nacho
In the main heat, the contestants must take four unseasonal items that they must ‘springify.’ Nacho’s advantage is that he gets to trade his winter dessert if he doesn’t like his selection. Nacho gets pecan pie and decides to change it for bread pudding (which Cristina had). Heather has pumpkin pie and Caleb got
Cristina: She now has Nacho’s pecan pie and is making a hummingbird cake, which is a banana pineapple spice cake common in southern baking. She also adds in the ground pecans.
Caleb: He got peppermint swirl brownies and is making a grasshopper inspired torte with mint ganache.
Heather: She got pumpkin pie and is making it three different ways — a pumpkin and coconut pannacotta; a pumpkin napoleon and a pumpkin frozen treat.
Nacho: Is converting bread pudding into a berry and bread pudding mousse parfait.
The next twist is coffee — which is interesting because Heather as just looking for coffee and couldn’t’ find it! As soon as she hears coffee she dumps her pannacotta because she wanted coffee in her pannacotta and couldn’t find it, so now that she has it, she adds it in and her twist is done. The twist is throwing Cristina off though. She decides to put it in her diplomat cream for her cake. Caleb adds it to white chocolate for a coffee white chocolate ganache. nacho makes a berry coulis as well, while Heather is still making a pumpkin frozen treat. For a few minutes, Nacho actually loses his bread pudding, but once he finds it he decides to make some of it into a mousse.
Spring Baking Championship judging time!
Caleb: His peppermint brownings look interesting, but Lorraine says it’s not that pretty. Nancy says it looks wintery. Duff wasn’t expecting that it tasted so good and it did taste light and springy.
Nacho: I’m impressed with the look of Nacho’s dish, so props to you for proving me wrong these last few weeks. He talks about his wife, Suzanna, and cries. Wow, what a great couple. Duff likes the plate but said he played it safe. He changes his mind when he hears about bread pudding mousse. Lorraine said it tasted like bread pudding and Duff likes the coffee meringue.
Cristina: Lorraine calls her dish a “very pretty” dish and Duff calls it “well thought out.” Cristina cries because she’s so scared. Nancy loves the cake and cream but doesn’t taste the coffee. Duff said he can taste it faintly, but the cream is a little thick. Lorraine loves her dish too.
Heather: Her pumpkin plate ‘brown’ color doesn’t go over well with Nancy and Lorraine as a spring dish. Nancy said the Napoleon is more cream cheese than pumpkin. Duff says she forgot the sugar in her frozen dish.
It’s time to find out who is going to the finale and who is going to be eliminated.
The winner of this week’s main heat? Nacho.
Going home this week? Heather.
The final three are Cristina, Caleb and Nacho.
Who do I think will win the Spring Baking Championship? Cristina.
See you next week for the tasty finale!
