Hey y’all! This week on the Holiday Baking Championship with occasional Bobby Deen sightings, we are down to the final three quality bakers, and Haley. Only three of these bakers will make it to the finale, and have the chance to win a paper certificate complete with four stickers, one of which might be made of gold foil, if the budget doesn’t run out by then.
The episode opens up with whimsical holiday music, as the bakers and Bobby Deen all enter the room at once, because apparently we are done with formality and don’t need to add dimension to this show with silly things like traditional line ups and host entrances. Bobby lets the bakers know they each have a 25% chance of taking home the title, which isn’t really true since Haley has a 99% chance if it’s based on blind luck and blow job abilities, and a 0.00000001% chance if it is based on baking talent.
I burnt myself on my easy bake oven.
Girl, it’s only a lightbulb for fuck’s sake.
All of the contestants are legit salivating over their chance of winning $50,000, but two more challenges stand in their way before the finale. First up is the preheat, which today has a re-gifting theme since that is what America is all about. Who doesn’t need a pair of used socks from Grandpa or a brooch that looks surprisingly similar to the one Aunt Mabel gave your third cousin six Easters ago. My favourite re-gifting memory is when my grandma gave my teenage cousin a golf shoe bag. Girl didn’t play golf, and certainly was not begging for a bag for her shoes. No chance that gift came off a golf prize table there Gamgam.
The beautiful gift the bakers will be gifting in this challenge is … caramel apples? How fucking random. But also fucking delicious. What started as a carnival delicacy has now become a $45 as big as your head phenomenon, with candy apples made of practically anything you can think of, from marshmallows to entire cakes, being sold on the regular.
Each baker will get a different caramel apple flavour, and this week the flavours are not all just stupid. Like Spam flavoured or hand soap coated caramel apples. The bakers will have 75 minutes, with Steve using the first 45 of those minutes just to find his damn apple. Those things weigh like 40 pounds Steve, you can’t be using the baby stick it came with to support that nonsense.
Whoopsies!
That gosh darn apple.
Da fuq did it go?
Steve’s apple is made from milk chocolate and toasted coconut, and as a special treat for us viewers, this week we get a whole lot of up close shots of the bakers eating. Because many of us have been questioning why we don’t get to listen to someone chew and watch them open mouthed nosh every episode. Steve decides to keep up with his usual game plan of making dishes that he can barely pronounce but that he thinks makes him sound like a high class baker. Which fits with how Steve sees himself as a baker – upscale yet casual. Alrighty then.
Steve throws out some fancy dancy baking terms and leads us through his game-plan, but really it ain’t all that, Steve. You can brown butter in the dang microwave. But we will let you think you are upscale. At least you are thinking outside of the condensed milk can, unlike someone who shall not be named.
How can I add condensed milk to an apple on a stick?
Maeve asks Steve if he is excited he didn’t get nuts, and Steve is never excited not to get nuts. But Steve is glad not to have to pretend to still be allergic after his attempts at dramatics week one didn’t get the reception and accolades he was hoping for. But what Steve does get is another great opportunity for hilarity and boy does he deliver. Or not. Even the music guy is over these weak sauce attempts at one liners. You ain’t even that great of a baker Steve. Don’t pretend you are also a comedian. Ain’t happening.
Maeve’s apple selection was the white chocolate and cinnamon chip apple, which based on her facial reaction she is loving. Oh right, that is just her face. Maeve has never used cinnamon chips before, because girl is above that shit. But Maeve will use the 75 minutes to become “the bomb white chocolate girl” because that’s a thing. Apparently.
Mmmm …
… delicious.
Maeve decides to make a pie, and just for giggles throw in some cheese for Nance Pants who can not get enough. Maeve considers herself a flavour scientist, since she clearly thinks that the idea of apples and cheese is pretty fucking revolutionary. Nothing new here girl. Keep your scientist title for when you can make sardines and peppermint pie taste like heaven.