Holiday Baking Championship - General Discussion

[Maya]

5 hours ago, dleighg said:

I haven't been able to tell she's a home baker from her performance. She's awfully good. 

I would love to see a female home baker win!

[Pi237]

Those cookie cakes all looked too thick and kind of gross. Why do they have to add nuts to everything?! And stop with the Pistachios! 🤣

[libgirl2]

12 minutes ago, Pi237 said:

Those cookie cakes all looked too thick and kind of gross. Why do they have to add nuts to everything?! And stop with the Pistachios! 🤣

I didn't quite get the cookie cakes maybe because I prefer a crisp cookie and I'm not sure how well that works in a cake. 

[tennisgurl]

I'm sad to see Andre go, I thought that he would go far with his first few bakes and his credentials, but I think the time crunch really hurt him. That being said, I still think he should have been chosen over Steven, Steven seems perfectly nice but he has been circling the drain for awhile now. Why is he here? 

The cookie swap with everyone tasting and voting on each others cookies was cute, I would like to see more of that. Natasha's cookies and later her big bake looked great, she might end up being a low key winner of this. If it comes down to Natasha and Rolf, I would be happy with that. 

What bit Nancy on her farm that put her in such a crappy mood? She was complaining about everything, more so than usual, it seemed like even Duff was getting a bit annoyed when she kept complaining about that one cookie being too much like cake. 

[dleighg]

I was too lazy to go back and check, but did they put plates of six cookies on the table for each other the taste, and then another six for the judges? I was thinking, "wait, they are going to finish off those platters!"

[libgirl2]

10 minutes ago, tennisgurl said:

I'm sad to see Andre go, I thought that he would go far with his first few bakes and his credentials, but I think the time crunch really hurt him. That being said, I still think he should have been chosen over Steven, Steven seems perfectly nice but he has been circling the drain for awhile now. Why is he here? 

The cookie swap with everyone tasting and voting on each others cookies was cute, I would like to see more of that. Natasha's cookies and later her big bake looked great, she might end up being a low key winner of this. If it comes down to Natasha and Rolf, I would be happy with that. 

What bit Nancy on her farm that put her in such a crappy mood? She was complaining about everything, more so than usual, it seemed like even Duff was getting a bit annoyed when she kept complaining about that one cookie being too much like cake. 

I don't think Steven is as bad as everyone else seems to think but I get a feeling him or Jer will be next. 

I am cheering for Rolf and Natasha! 

[libgirl2]

18 minutes ago, dleighg said:

I was too lazy to go back and check, but did they put plates of six cookies on the table for each other the taste, and then another six for the judges? I was thinking, "wait, they are going to finish off those platters!"

I seem to remember that they did. 

[Rammchick]

20 minutes ago, libgirl2 said:

I don't think Steven is as bad as everyone else seems to think but I get a feeling him or Jer will be next. 

I am cheering for Rolf and Natasha! 

Steven was on The Great Canadian Baking Show last year, and did pretty well.  But it's hard for home bakers to keep up with the pros on a show like this one.

[libgirl2]

6 minutes ago, Rammchick said:

Steven was on The Great Canadian Baking Show last year, and did pretty well.  But it's hard for home bakers to keep up with the pros on a show like this one.

I think home bakers are used to a slower pace. 

[mojoween]

Duff’s mocking “is it holidaaay” made me giggle.

Agree that there should be more blind judging.  It would be fun if while judging, they tried to guess whose was whose.  Like they absolutely had to know which cookie was Rafi’s because of the piped Christmas tree, yeah?

[kirklandia]

I was confused by the numbers in the cookie judging. After the blind tasting, the platters looked pretty well decimated. I didn't get a long enough look to see if there were enough left for each judge to have a cookie . Then, when they showed the bakers presenting their cookies to the judges,  the platters were full. Definitely a dozen cookies.

I thought maybe I misheard, and each baker had to make two dozen cookies.
Then I realized that they may well have filmed the scenes in a different order than they were shown. It would make sense for the bakers to show the judges their full platters of cookies before they did their blind taste testing.

But they would have to have reserved enough cookies for the judges to actually taste.

Edited Wednesday at 11:44 PM by kirklandia

[Splashy]

6 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

What bit Nancy on her farm that put her in such a crappy mood? She was complaining about everything, more so than usual, it seemed like even Duff was getting a bit annoyed when she kept complaining about that one cookie being too much like cake. 

I yelled, "Some cookies are cake-like!" It is a thing. Has she never had one? Just like some brownies are cake-like rather than fudgy. 

6 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

I'm sad to see Andre go, I thought that he would go far with his first few bakes and his credentials, but I think the time crunch really hurt him. That being said, I still think he should have been chosen over Steven

I was shocked because they said absolutely nothing good about Steven's cookie-cake. Both of the cookies were over-baked and hard! . . . of course, that could have been just editing shenanigans again, and maybe it had some redeeming qualities? And yes, Andre's bake was not great, but I don't remember the criticisms being quite as harsh for his. 

Edited Wednesday at 11:54 PM by Splashy
brownie comment added

[jcbrown]

1 hour ago, kirklandia said:

I was confused by the numbers in the cookie judging. After the blind tasting, the platters looked pretty well decimated. I didn't get a long enough look to see if there were enough left for each judge to have a cookie . Then, when they showed the bakers presenting their cookies to the judges,  the platters were full. Definitely a dozen cookies.

I thought maybe I misheard, and each baker had to make two dozen cookies.
Then I realized that they may well have filmed the scenes in a different order than they were shown. It would make sense for the bakers to show the judges their full platters of cookies before they did their blind taste testing.

But they would have to have reserved enough cookies for the judges to actually taste.

That's what I thought, that they filmed them in a different order. The judges tasted first and then the bakers did. I don't remember exactly why I thought that but it makes sense with what those of you who were paying more attention are saying.

[tv echo]

21 hours ago, tennisgurl said:

What bit Nancy on her farm that put her in such a crappy mood? She was complaining about everything, more so than usual, it seemed like even Duff was getting a bit annoyed when she kept complaining about that one cookie being too much like cake. 

Apparently Nancy is having trouble selling her NY farmhouse (Sun article).

[dewelar]

16 hours ago, jcbrown said:

That's what I thought, that they filmed them in a different order. The judges tasted first and then the bakers did. I don't remember exactly why I thought that but it makes sense with what those of you who were paying more attention are saying.

Possibly because when they mentioned who won the bakers' vote later in the episode, the judges seemed surprised, which struck me as odd.

[CharlizeCat]

All I can focus on was a quick cut-away scene of Meghan piping her cookies. She was bent over and one of her front pieces of hair came, well, within a hair of dragging in the icing on top of a cookie. GROSS!

I am for Rolf or Natasha. I have noticed that the European bakers never win, no matter how good they are. It's seems almost personal. So, I would be happy with Natasha.

Courtney can go at any time and I predict Jer is next up. I am neutral about Steven and Meghan. Something about Rafi bugs me. I can't tell if he's arrogant or it's just dry humor. His bakes usually look good, though and apparently taste great.