Halloween Baking Championship - General Discussion

[2soon2tell]

Aaron annoys me. Not sure why, maybe I’m just old. The sheep was just weird looking, the zebra didn’t look good or sound like it tasted good. The pig head looked simplistic. Maybe I need to start drinking some of Lillian’s coffee when I’m watching the show.

[Splashy]

I thought Thierry's choux dough in the first round looked really liquidy. I said, "That is not gonna work". And voila, it didn't.

Yeah, that zebra thing did not work, either. The face looked unfinished - it was barely there. He was lucky he had immunity.

And Joel put way too much stuff on his cow mutation. It would've come across better if he'd streamlined his design. 

JL was the right one to go home, but the giraffe design on his cake looked great. It's too bad he wasn't able to make better use of it.

 

 

 

 

Edited Tuesday at 11:43 PM by Splashy
Fixed punctuation; computer is wonky tonight.

[libgirl2]

7 minutes ago, Splashy said:

I thought Thierry's choux dough in the first round looked really liquidy. I said, "That is not gonna work". And voila, it didn't.

Yeah, that zebra thing did not work, either. The face looked unfinished - it was barely there. He was lucky he had immunity.

And Joel put way too much stuff on his cow mutation. It would've come across better if he'd streamlined his design. 

JL was the right one to go home, but the giraffe design on his cake looked great. It's too bad he wasn't able to make better use of it.

 

 

 

 

Thierry did not have immunity. I am still puzzled over that zebra. 

[dleighg]

14 minutes ago, Splashy said:

Yeah, that zebra thing did not work, either. The face looked unfinished - it was barely there. He was lucky he had immunity.

zebra (thierry) didn't have immunity

Speaking of the Baileys creme-- how do they seem to always have a photo of whatever personal thing they are talking about?

[starlightlost]

I just cannot with that sheep. How did that win? It didn't even have ears 😂

 

It seems they sometimes get confused, as do I, about the real challenge. Was it mutant animals? Or just gory animals? There's a difference.

 

Poor JL. Wasn't cut out for this fast paced stuff. I wonder if they get to go in and familiarize themselves with where everything is in the kitchen before filming begins?

[dleighg]

I thought a lot of them just looked messy, like I couldn't grasp what I was looking at. The judges raved over one of them that was so cluttered that it looked to me like it had fallen on the floor. I forget whose it was; I think one of the guys. It had some spun sugar on top for no reason I could figure out.

[Maya]

I kept wondering why the sheep didn’t have a nose. The head looked like a human skull. 

[Pi237]

Always toast your nuts!  But for real, Why does there always have to be a crunchy layer?  I like a smooth bite. Whenever I try a good looking dessert and hit a walnut or something, it just ruins it for me. Takes the flavor right out and all you taste is the nut. (And now I’ll sound like a nut, but….)
 

Hide the damn pistachios from these people, please! It’s so weird. I like shelling and eating pistachios, but the already shelled ones taste so weird to me. They have to get rid of those or I can’t watch anymore lmao  So, hide the pistachios and stop making the bakers ‘act’ with the shocked expressions and fake laughing, it’s painful. 
 

JL’s giraffe pattern looked cool tho. Shame it was such a mess. Much like the zebra/unicorn.

Sheep’s face was bad, but cake inside looked delicious.    Joel did So Much, but I liked the look of it.     Aarons pig was good. Megan’s eh.  Manny’s was good. None of them seemed very cohesive.  Holly’s chicken looked cool, mostly due to air brushing. 
Im always impressed at what the air brushing can do. Makes a huge difference. 

Carla in costume, trying to eat and talk was funny. 

Im not a chef or a professional taster, and tend to like my flavors simple. So, I rarely get this judging. They seem to want everything to have strong flavors, a crunch layer, some heat, and some citrus all at once. I just like chocolate. Or vanilla. lol. The coffee and pepper combo sounds interesting though. 

[dleighg]

7 minutes ago, Pi237 said:

I like shelling and eating pistachios, but the already shelled ones taste so weird to me.

I once bought those (so much easier, I thought!) and they were terrible. Never again.

8 minutes ago, Pi237 said:

Carla in costume, trying to eat and talk was funny. 

It seemed all three of them had trouble talking. I guess the makeup folks went wild on the rodent teeth :) I would hate that.

[libgirl2]

1 hour ago, Pi237 said:

JL’s giraffe pattern looked cool tho. Shame it was such a mess. Much like the zebra/unicorn.

Carla in costume, trying to eat and talk was funny. 

 

I agree that the giraffe pattern was really cool. He should left that tart and concentrated more on the giraffe.  With the legs it reminded me of the walking head in the movie The Thing. 

I had to laugh at Carla! 

Edited 12 hours ago by libgirl2

[Rammchick]

23 hours ago, carrps said:

We didn't get it, either. It's like he does futsy little things, then, in the last hour, it's like "Oh, I have to bake a cake!" or "Oh, I need to make pate a choux!" He has skills, but his time management is horrendous. Wouldn't anyone think that whatever needs to be baked should be the first thing done? 

Even worse, he baked two items when he only needed one.  He could've devoted more time to the roll cake and decor if he hadn't made the tart as well.  Neither product was executed properly.

[tennisgurl]

JL seems like a really nice guy and clearly has a lot of talent, but he was inevitably going to go home, his time management is just terrible. His ideas and decorations are so good but he always focuses on the wrong things, which leaves the actual bake to the last minute. What were you even doing while everyone else was baking my guy? 

I wish the sheep looked a bit more like a sheep, but I could still tell what it was and the inside looked wonderful. I also thought that the pig head was fun, the judges were all about that pig and the risks that Aaron was apparently taking with it. 

You can tell the costume and makeup departments were having a great time designing the costumes for the judges this week, they all looked great, especially Carla. 

So were they supposed to be gory zombie animals or mutated animals? Either way, I still thought they looked pretty cute.

[Splashy]

22 hours ago, libgirl2 said:

Thierry did not have immunity.

Grrrr ... All during the challenge I kept getting confused between Thierry and Manny, and which one had immunity. I guess they told Manny it was a good thing he had immunity. Thanks for the correction!

7 hours ago, Pi237 said:

Why does there always have to be a crunchy layer?  I like a smooth bite.

Same. Really, it's ok for something not to have a crunch factor in it!

Oh, and on JL's giraffe, wasn't the head on upside down? The way the legs were positioned, it looked like it was on its back, but the head was facing forward. I don't know, maybe it was me. After all, I did get confused between Manny and Thierry. 🤪

[springbarb]

7 hours ago, Pi237 said:

Carla in costume, trying to eat and talk was funny. 

Im not a chef or a professional taster, and tend to like my flavors simple. So, I rarely get this judging. They seem to want everything to have strong flavors, a crunch layer, some heat, and some citrus all at once. I just like chocolate. Or vanilla. lol. The coffee and pepper combo sounds interesting though. 

The costumes bother me when they clearly interfere with eating. That should be the one rule of their costumes. I actually didn't watch this show for a while because the complexity of the costumes annoyed me.

Agreed on the flavors. So often the desserts just sound incredibly busy. Everything doesn't need 5 or 6 flavors.

[libgirl2]

8 minutes ago, Splashy said:

Grrrr ... All during the challenge I kept getting confused between Thierry and Manny, and which one had immunity. I guess they told Manny it was a good thing he had immunity. Thanks for the correction!

Same. Really, it's ok for something not to have a crunch factor in it!

Oh, and on JL's giraffe, wasn't the head on upside down? The way the legs were positioned, it looked like it was on its back, but the head was facing forward. I don't know, maybe it was me. After all, I did get confused between Manny and Thierry. 🤪

I honestly don't think I eat a lot of cake that has a crunchy layer. A fruit layer yes, but not a crunchy. 

The head was facing down. I would have gone with the head facing up and gone with the neck and head fell off, legs sprouted and it took off (as I said before). 

3 minutes ago, springbarb said:

The costumes bother me when they clearly interfere with eating. That should be the one rule of their costumes. I actually didn't watch this show for a while because the complexity of the costumes annoyed me.

Agreed on the flavors. So often the desserts just sound incredibly busy. Everything doesn't need 5 or 6 flavors.

I like the costumes but they should be able to still easily eat the cakes. 

[TVbitch]

When John and Carla were "observing" the bakers I don't even think the bakers were actually there at that time. 🤫

Aaron is a great baker, but whenever they bring someone back, I feel like that person basically has a pass straight through to the finale. 

[libgirl2]

2 minutes ago, TVbitch said:

When John and Carla were "observing" the bakers I don't even think the bakers were actually there at that time. 🤫

Aaron is a great baker, but whenever they bring someone back, I feel like that person basically has a pass straight through to the finale. 

I know what you mean. At least he was good before and didn't just leave because of an emergency so we never got to see how good he could be. 

When you mentioned bring someone back, I was remembering the spring baking championship when they suddenly brought in two new bakers (one of whom left right away).