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Recap: Holiday Baking Championship 2.3 "Stuffing Is The Best Part"

Nov 18, 2015 by Sarah Moffatt

I will never, ever look at the whoopie pie the same way again.

In this week’s pre-heat challenge, the remaining 8 bakers were asked to put their spin on a traditional whoopie pie using Thanksgiving themes they drew at random.

Now, when I’m given a theme I must follow to put my own spin on a traditional dessert, I immediately think, “I should transform this to represent my theme!” According to the judges, that was not what was intended. I mean, how do you make a whoopie pie represent fall foliage without making it look different from a normal whoopie pie! I don’t get it and the judges literally complained about this to every single person. Yes, there were some pies that looked like two muffins stuck together – ahem, Briana – but Haley’s leaf-shaped pies were adorable and way better looking than Melody’s sloppy turkey icing job.

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Miraculously, Melody was in the top 2 along with Steve, who edged her out by a feather with his super cute pilgrim-themed devil’s cake, even though he got dinged for not using a traditional whoopie pie shape. Give me a break!

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After winning the pre-heat, Steve got first pick of the candies provided for the main heat challenge, which was to create a holiday cake with candy filling.

Undeterred by her terrible showing last week and her questionable whoopie pies, Melody made a terrible sounding (but wonderful looking) chocolate beet cake with chocolate covered caramels inside. Although I’d never eat it (because beets!), it looked really pretty.

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Susan, who has won twice, made an ornament cake with those weird raspberry candies your grandma always has stuffed inside. Oddly enough, she put them in there wrapped, which I thought the judges would’ve killed her on. Instead they praised her on it, but she still landed in the bottom two.

Briana also landed in the bottom for creating a dry cake that wasn’t decorated very well.

Melody’s beet cake ended up winning her the main challenge, while Susan’s deflated ornament sent her home. I really thought Briana would’ve gone home since she’s won exactly 0 times, but what do I know? I know that beet cake sounds gross, that’s what.

New episodes of Holiday Baking Championship air at 9pm ET Sundays on Food Network; recent episodes are available On Demand.

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