Posted in: streaming, TV | Tagged: Food Network, halloween

Halloween Baking Championship Returns! Recapping How It All Began

Halloween Baking Championship returns to Food Network this Monday, September 16th - so let's look back at Season 1 to see how it all began...

In anticipation of the best season of the entire year and the annual return of Food Network's Halloween Baking Championship, we're doing a recap of each season leading up to full coverage of season 10, which debuts September 16. Until then, let's go back and recap the first-ever Halloween Baking Championship, with host Richard Blais and judges Sherry Yard, Ron Ben-Israel, and Carla Hall.

For the first of this season's four episodes, the first challenge was to incorporate a trick-or-treat candy in a cupcake, with Jason's Twix bar mama spider cupcake coming out on top and winning him an advantage for the main heat. For the main challenge, each baker was tasked with creating a dessert that matched their assigned Halloween costume. Jason's pirate chocolate coconut cake and Audrey's rustic cowboy cheesecake came out on top, with Audrey winning the first week. Sadly, Jennifer's lackluster broken ganache on her witch tart and Erin's dry robot blondie landed them both in the bottom, with Jennifer saying goodbye.

The second episode sees a store-bought ingredients challenge, with the six remaining bakers having to choose two pre-made ingredients to use. Erin won with her biscuit dough cinnamon rolls and sugar cookie Frankenstein monster on top. Speaking of Frankenstein, the main challenge was to create a mashup of flavors to create a franken-sweet. Ashlee's blood orange tart and Jason's spicy chocolate pot de creme were at the top, with Jason's creepy confection winning. Rudy's spiked chocolate cake and Erin's chocolate ganache tart were at the bottom, with Erin leaving the competition for good.

Episode three sees the final five turn fun fall festivities creepy by making creepy donuts. Rudy's bloody slaughterhouse donut with bacon and pig parts won in the pre-heat, giving him the ability to assign extra curveball ingredients in the main heat. The main challenge saw the bakers making a graveyard themed pumpkin dessert, with a curveball ingredient being assigned halfway through. This paid off for Rudy as he won the week with his Mexican bread pudding and churro mummies, while Audrey was sent home after presenting crumbled store-bought cookies on her deep-fried pumpkin cheesecake.

The final four, Rudy, Ashlee, Scott, and Jason, dive right in, making desserts based on classic haunted house characters for the finale. Sadly, Ashlee watched her dream crumble in the first finale challenge when her mummy crepe cake failed to impress the judges. The final three gentlemen are tasked with making a showstopping haunted house cake worthy of the $25,000 grand prize.

In the end, Rudy and his Cinnamon City Haunted House Cake took the very first Halloween Baking Championship and the grand prize money. Overall, the season was a good, standard baking show with few surprises or change-ups to the format. Looking at what the Baking Championship has become, it's fun to look back on its beginnings and trace how we got to where we are now.

As a reminder, all nine past seasons of the Halloween Baking Championship are available to stream on Max. Stay tuned for more binge recaps, and don't forget to watch the newest season on Food Network starting September 16.

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