Holiday Baking Championship - General Discussion

[kathyk2]

Why is Stephen still in this competition? He was supposed to do a fuchsia cake and the candles looked out of place. I thought some of the flavor pairings in the first preheat were gross.

[libgirl2]

10 minutes ago, susannot said:

None of those cakes came anywhere close to similar cakes on GBBS this week.  

No but the style was similar.  

[MerBearHou]

I don’t think they could really seriously ding anyone for those color combinations.  Several were just tall orders / bizarre so it had to come down to taste.  

[Frost]

Courtney looks like the producers favorite this season.  Her bakes do not seem to merit it.  Wasn't her Pavlova raw and cracked beyond recognition?  And her Lambeth cake had some issues too (that I can't remember).  I wish some of these bakers would wear hairnets.  I keep waiting for a judge to pull a hair out of their food!

I like Natasha and Meghan.  Rolf is good but I can't quite read his personality.

[dleighg]

So I gather they had two episodes last night? I kept thinking "WHAT CAROLERS?"

I wish Courtney with her little girl voice and hair flipping went away. And Megan continues to annoy me. She certainly knows where the camera is and what expression to use for it. 

I'll have to watch the second one now.

[libgirl2]

7 minutes ago, dleighg said:

So I gather they had two episodes last night? I kept thinking "WHAT CAROLERS?"

I wish Courtney with her little girl voice and hair flipping went away. And Megan continues to annoy me. She certainly knows where the camera is and what expression to use for it. 

I'll have to watch the second one now.

Meghan is starting to annoy me a bit, but she is good. 

[CrazyInAlabama]

 

(I appreciate the posters that mentioned they showed two separate episodes Monday, it was very confusing). 

S11.E03: “Friendsgiving” New, 11/18/2024 (1 hour episode, followed by a second 1 hour episode)

To highlight Friendsgiving, host Jesse Palmer asks the remaining 10 bakers to create flavor friends desserts designed to make a seasonal flavor pairing shine. Then, the bakers are divided into two teams for the ultimate fall flavor showdown as they take on apple vs. pumpkin desserts in an all-out effort to settle the debate for judges Carla Hall, Duff Goldman and Nancy Fuller.
 

Bakers-

1. Megan-Home-Wash

2. Courtney-Pro-NJ

3. Andre-Pro-FL

4. Jer-Pro-NV

5. Karen-Pro-CA

6. Natasha-Pro-Mass

7. Steven-Home-Ontario (was on Great Canadian Baking Show)

8. Delna-Pro-Toronto

9. Rafi-Pro-CA

10. Wolf-Calgary-Pro

Preheat: Seasonal pairings for desserts

Winner of challenge and $1,000 cash:  Rolf

Elimination: Bakers in two teams, Apple vs. Pumpkin.   One on each team will make an apple version of the dessert, and the other baker will do pumpkin.   The winning baker gets immunity.

Winner: Andre wins, and Apple side gets immunity.

Bottom Two: Karen and Courtney

Eliminated: from the Pumpkin side, Karen.

Second Half: Old-Fashioned Christmas Party Season 11 / Episode 5 (They put two separate episodes together to make a 2 hour episode).  

Host Jesse Palmer steps back in time to the Victorian era for an old-fashioned Christmas party. In the preheat, the remaining nine bakers are tasked with making fruitcake-blend desserts with a marinated mix of dried fruit, spices, and liquor. Then, the bakers must make Lambeth cakes featuring intricate piping, strong color schemes and an unexpected twist featuring an old-timey ingredient. Judges Carla Hall, Duff Goldman and Nancy Fuller decide which baker will be eliminated. (Also with very annoying carolers).

 

Bakers-

1. Megan-Home-Wash

2. Courtney-Pro-NJ

3. Andre-Pro-FL

4. Jer-Pro-NV

5. Natasha-Pro-Mass

6. Steven-Home-Ontario (was on Great Canadian Baking Show)

7. Delna-Pro-Toronto

8. Rafi-Pro-CA

9. Wolf-Calgary-Pro

Preheat Challenge:    Fruitcake blend desserts,

Winner:  Courtney  (gets $1,000 cash)

Elimination Challenge: Lambeth Cakes, with strong colors

Top Two: Rafi and Natasha

Winner: Natasha

Bottom Two: Delna and Jer

Eliminated: Delna

(Note: next week they are one hour episodes only, probably two hours for the finale). 

Edited November 19 by CrazyInAlabama

[mojoween]

Aww man I liked the carolers.

[dleighg]

Now that I have watched the second episode, the carolers were much worse than I expected.

[mlp]

6 hours ago, dleighg said:

wish Courtney with her little girl voice and hair flipping went away. And Megan continues to annoy me. She certainly knows where the camera is and what expression to use for it. 

Ditto.  Courtney's "enthusiasm" has a lot to do with the cameras too I think and her voice is worse than Ree Drummond's.  I think winning the first round is what saved her.

The carved tree cake was pretty but it didn't look a bit Victorian to me.  I didn't understand how it won.

The carollers were a cute idea but they were out of sync.  Their failure to harmonize smoothly made me cringe more than once.  I wondered if they were an actual foursome or FN staffers with decent voices who were told to throw together an act and didn't have enough time to rehearse. 

[2soon2tell]

Occasionally, Courtney’s voice falls into a lower, more normal range. So, I’m wondering if the little girl voice is an affectation, and how hard it is to maintain. 

[Bumblebee84047]

21 hours ago, mojoween said:

How exactly could Jer have made those colors she was given Christmas?

I pretty much yelled that at my TV.

[mojoween]

2 hours ago, mlp said:

The carved tree cake was pretty but it didn't look a bit Victorian to me.  I didn't understand how it won.

It sounded like the most delicious cake ever made on this show so I’m wondering if it was that plus the uniqueness of her not presenting a round/square cake is what did it.

[libgirl2]

1 hour ago, 2soon2tell said:

Occasionally, Courtney’s voice falls into a lower, more normal range. So, I’m wondering if the little girl voice is an affectation, and how hard it is to maintain. 

It could be that she has that little girl voice normally and has to work at a more adult voice. 

Edited November 20 by libgirl2

[CheshireCat]

On 11/18/2024 at 9:41 PM, libgirl2 said:

Interesting as they just had these kind of cakes on GBBO. 

Are you referring to the piping? As far as I know, these kind of cakes are currently seeing a revival, of sorts. 

On 11/18/2024 at 10:21 PM, MerBearHou said:

I don’t think they could really seriously ding anyone for those color combinations.  Several were just tall orders / bizarre so it had to come down to taste.  

Some of the colors are actually impossible to recreate. 

I needed a color that can be described as a bright magenta-fuchsia mix in summer. So, a pink-ish one with a bit of blue added in but whenever I mixed in blue or purple, the color got closer in shade but lost its brightness. In hindsight, it made sense because blue is added to red and pink food colors to tone it down. 

I googled and the result was that magenta is a shade of red (as is fuchsia) and red is a primary color, therefore, it can't be mixed. (That would also explain why the food coloring that's called fuchsia looks nothing like the color).  

I think perwinkle is also an impossible color to mix. 

With that said, the majority of cakes looked beautiful (although, look-wise, I thought the winning cake was one of the weakest ones) and many of the slices looked incredibly neat. 

Overall, I feel like the works of the contestants of this season are neater than in previous seasons. I'm quite enjoying it. 

I've also enjoyed the judging so far. It may be the editing but I like that it's less subjective, like one or the other judge expressing their personal dislike/like for something and that there's more substance to it, like a filling flavor being too heavy for the light cake and things like that. It's constructive and criticism that gives the bakers something they can improve on and that helps them become better bakers. 

[Rammchick]

11 hours ago, CheshireCat said:

Are you referring to the piping? As far as I know, these kind of cakes are currently seeing a revival, of sorts. 

GBBO had similar kinds of cakes as their showstopper for 70s Week. 

[Splashy]

On 11/18/2024 at 9:29 PM, mojoween said:

“Lady Flavor” can get retired any second now.

Yeah, that's getting really tiring. 

Lambeth cakes are just not my style. Too ornate and waaaay too much color in the icing. 🤮

That face Carla made when Nancy attempted to sing - bwah hahahahaaaaa! My sister & I both busted out laughing, and I had to rewind immediately so we could watch it again. 🤣

[dleighg]

5 minutes ago, Splashy said:

Yeah, that's getting really tiring. 

 

and didn't she get dinged for not enough flavor in her cake? Serves her right. The hair flipping is SO annoying.

[libgirl2]

10 minutes ago, Splashy said:

Yeah, that's getting really tiring. 

Lambeth cakes are just not my style. Too ornate and waaaay too much color in the icing. 🤮

That face Carla made when Nancy attempted to sing - bwah hahahahaaaaa! My sister & I both busted out laughing, and I had to rewind immediately so we could watch it again. 🤣

All I could think of is how your tongue and lips would look after eating some of that frosting. 

 

[MerBearHou]

17 minutes ago, Splashy said:

That face Carla made when Nancy attempted to sing - bwah hahahahaaaaa! My sister & I both busted out laughing, and I had to rewind immediately so we could watch it again. 🤣

I rewound too -- that Carla face was so great!! 😂

[invisiblegirl12]

I'm not really up with the Gen Alpha lingo, but I've figured one out for sure. Megan is 100% a "pick me girl." Constantly making faces for the camera, vocalizing at every possible moment, and casually bantering with the host & judges like she's auditioning for her own show. Maybe that's what they're encouraged to do. She's definitely laying on the charm...thick.

[libgirl2]

2 minutes ago, invisiblegirl12 said:

I'm not really up with the Gen Alpha lingo, but I've figured one out for sure. Megan is 100% a "pick me girl." Constantly making faces for the camera, vocalizing at every possible moment, and casually bantering with the host & judges like she's auditioning for her own show. Maybe that's what they're encouraged to do. She's definitely laying on the charm...thick.

There have been other past bakers exactly like her and it got old really fast. 

[tennisgurl]

I thought that the Friendsgiving dinner had some really cute pieces, especially the turkey that looked like a flamingo. I'm a sucker for quirky colors on a Thanksgiving table. 

Lambeth cakes are definitely very TikTok style cakes, very heavy on big presentation that looks great on a video, no wonder that's what they went with for their Victorian theme. The tree that won looked great but not super Victorian, overall I thought the cakes looked cool but all over the place. 

The singers were cute at first but got old fast, although it was probably worth it for their musical "wah wah" music, and the judges reactions to the constant musical hijinks. Nancy was clearly doing keg stands back there, right? 

Why do I suddenly want to watch Jessie host an adaptation of A Christmas Carol?

Edited November 20 by tennisgurl

[Splashy]

1 hour ago, tennisgurl said:

Why do I suddenly want to watch Jessie host an adaptation of A Christmas Carol?

Yes, he looked really good in those duds!

[2soon2tell]

In the past, the judges have complained about the taste of items made with a lot of food coloring. Personally, I’ve never noticed that food coloring had a specific taste, but if they could taste it, those Lambeth cakes must have tasted bad to them. 
 

I liked the way they looked, but I don’t think I could take all that frosting, even with my massive sweet tooth.

[kathyk2]

8 hours ago, libgirl2 said:

There have been other past bakers exactly like her and it got old really fast. 

I don't think Megen is doing anything that other contestants haven't done before them. You can't be an introvert and compete on television. I don't understand why we judge female contestants more harshly than male ones. Nobody complains about how men speak or their behavior during the show.

[libgirl2]

7 hours ago, kathyk2 said:

I don't think Megen is doing anything that other contestants haven't done before them. You can't be an introvert and compete on television. I don't understand why we judge female contestants more harshly than male ones. Nobody complains about how men speak or their behavior during the show.

There have been plenty of male contestants who have been like that too. Aaron on the Halloween was getting on my nerves as well. 

[CrazyInAlabama]

11 hours ago, 2soon2tell said:

In the past, the judges have complained about the taste of items made with a lot of food coloring. Personally, I’ve never noticed that food coloring had a specific taste, but if they could taste it, those Lambeth cakes must have tasted bad to them. 
 

I liked the way they looked, but I don’t think I could take all that frosting, even with my massive sweet tooth.

Yes, food coloring in massive amounts, may have a taste.      Probably not the cheap stuff we buy at the grocery store, but the bakers are using professional products.    

[meep.meep]

Interesting that they had trouble producing fuchsia with food colorings - had they used beets it might have looked better.

[mojoween]

18 hours ago, kathyk2 said:

I don't think Megen is doing anything that other contestants haven't done before them. You can't be an introvert and compete on television. I don't understand why we judge female contestants more harshly than male ones. Nobody complains about how men speak or their behavior during the show.

I feel the same way about Stephen as I do about Megan.  They are both over the top.

[Salacious Kitty]

6 minutes ago, mojoween said:

I feel the same way about Stephen as I do about Megan.  They are both over the top.

They're the home bakers. Maybe they both have a bit of a chip on their shoulders that makes them mug for the cameras. 

Edited Thursday at 10:55 PM by Salacious Kitty

[CrazyInAlabama]

What I don't like is a lot of the home bakers have extensive backgrounds as pastry chefs.   They're not really home bakers, they just don't have a brick and mortar bakery.  

 

[TVbitch]

Jesse is so keeping that Merry Old England outfit. He was into it. His milady can look forward to him breaking that out some night soon! 😁

[LexieLily]

On 11/18/2024 at 8:50 PM, mojoween said:

How exactly could Jer have made those colors she was given Christmas?

It wasn't Christmas, but her color combination was almost exactly the same as Monica's apartment on Friends

[Frost]

We're still stuck with Courtney and Jer - my personal bottom two.  I like Natasha and Meghan so I'm glad they did so well.  Rolf could definitely win the whole thing.  I like Rafi, but he doesn't seem to be as clean with his bakes as Rolf.

[kathyk2]

Duff's daughter is adorable. What is keeping Stephen in the competition? Andre was robbed.

[mojoween]

Godammit my favorites just never win these damn shows.  Yes Andre’s cookies were wonky as hell but they didn’t like anything Stephen did.

Megan’s cake was all brown.  Brown brown brown.  And it came in second?  Bollocks.

Rafi and Rolf’s preheat cookies sounded delightful.

Three Lady Flavor references was four too many.

Natasha’s dress was wicked cute.  She is stealthily strong in this competition.

[JudgeyMcJudgyPants]

Booooooo!  Wrong person was booted.

Courtney is annoying, she can go anytime.

I’d be ok if the final 3 were Natasha, Rolf, and Ravi.

[Rammchick]

I love this show because it helps me get my aggressions out, which is helpful these days.  Oh Nancy, why hasn't a cow on your farm kicked you yet?

[libgirl2]

I liked Andre, but I wasn't surprised he was booted. I expected more from him and he seemed to have a hard time overall. Maybe it was the time constraints? I did like him. 

I am pulling Rolf or Natasha for the win. Ravi is good but again, not enough filling in his cookies. 

[CrazyInAlabama]

S11.E05 “Holiday Cookie Exchange”  New 11/25/2024

Host Jesse Palmer throws a holiday cookie exchange party, and the bakers must create flavor-forward seasonal cookies -- but no decorated sugar cookies or gingerbread allowed! Judges Carla Hall, Duff Goldman and Nancy Fuller decide the winner of the preheat in a blind tasting, and the bakers get to vote for their favorite cookie as well! Then, the bakers must rise to the occasion by making holiday cookie cakes that feature two different types of cookies, a minimum of four layers and a flavor twist to help wash it all down.

Bakers:

1. Megan-Home-Wash

2. Courtney-Pro-NJ

3. Andre-Pro-FL

4. Jer-Pro-NV

5. Natasha-Pro-Mass

6. Steven-Home-Ontario (was on Great Canadian Baking Show)

7. Rafi-Pro-CA

8. Rolf-Calgary-Pro

 

Preheat Challenge: Cookies, but no decorated sugar cookie or gingerbread allowed.

Winner:   (Wins $500 cash) Natasha

Bakers favorite: Rolf (Wins $500)

Elimination Challenge: Holiday cookie cakes, four layer medium, with at least two different types of cookies and a flavor twist.

Top Two:  Megan and Rolf

Winner:  Rolf

Bottom Two: Andre and Steven

Eliminated: Andre

[GiandujaPie]

Too bad about Andre. He mostly made delicious desserts but I knew that once the field started to winnow, his lack of decorating skills would be his downfall. I think Steven was saved by his slightly better decorating skills. 

I'm hoping Jer starts doing better. On the show she says she's from Carson City NV and I saw that in some of her photos they showed during her introduction that she works at Edgewood golf course which is where a celebrity golf tournament is held every summer at Lake Tahoe. I've eaten at the restaurants at the golf course/hotel many times and the food and desserts are really good. Tahoe is not like Vegas and there aren't really that many good restaurants so the restaurants at Edgewood really stand out IMO. According to her Instagram, she's now moved on to Palm Springs. But I'm still rooting for her even though I think she's making too many mistakes to get far. 

[libgirl2]

5 minutes ago, GiandujaPie said:

I'm hoping Jer starts doing better. On the show she says she's from Carson City NV and I saw that in some of her photos they showed during her introduction that she works at Edgewood golf course which is where a celebrity golf tournament is held every summer at Lake Tahoe. I've eaten at the restaurants at the golf course/hotel many times and the food and desserts are really good. Tahoe is not like Vegas and there aren't really that many good restaurants so the restaurants at Edgewood really stand out IMO. According to her Instagram, she's now moved on to Palm Springs. But I'm still rooting for her even though I think she's making too many mistakes to get far. 

I like Jer and would really like to see her do better. She started out pretty good but has faded. It is like you said with Andre, when  you get this narrowed down, those mistakes or lack of decorating skills in his case will get you. 

[kathyk2]

Nancy was in a bad mood. She complained about the turtle cookies the amount of coffee in another cookie and the dried cherries. I think she has too much influence in the outcome of the show.

[mlp]

11 hours ago, libgirl2 said:

I liked Andre, but I wasn't surprised he was booted. I expected more from him and he seemed to have a hard time overall. Maybe it was the time constraints? I did like him. 

Same.  With his credentials, I expected he'd do a lot better.  I was sorry to see him go but it was the right decision.

I like Rolf and I hope he wins.

[Salacious Kitty]

I don't think Nancy likes Rolf very much. I doubt he'll win. She seems to love Natasha and Megan, but I doubt the home baker will make it to the end.