Sugar Rush Christmas (2019–…): Season 2, Episode 2 - Christmas Countdown - full transcript
Bakers compete in three rounds of holiday baking challenges, Santa's food, reindeer food, and an advent calendar cake. Chris Bosh guest judges.
This is Sugar Rush Christmas!
The baking competition where
time is the most important ingredient.
Four teams of brilliant bakers
battle it out for sugary success
over three rounds of competition,
-racing against each other and the clock.
-[chimes]
The faster they work, the better, because
any time saved in round one, cupcakes,
and round two, confections,
will be banked and added
to their third and final round, cakes.
I'm your host, Hunter March,
and determining which of these teams is
going home with $10,000 in their stocking
is our timeless panel of judges.
Ever the entrepreneur,
she makes her lists and checks them twice.
It's pastry chef Candace Nelson.
Celebrated Australian pastry chef,
and honestly the only thing
I need for Christmas,
it's Adriano Zumbo.
We're masters of the ticking timer here,
and we cannot wait for the holidays.
So today,
four teams of bakers are competing
in three
Christmas countdown themed rounds.
And finally, our guest judge,
two-time NBA champion
and Olympic gold medalist, Chris Bosh.
Candace and Adriano are
presenting the first two rounds
-of our Christmas countdown challenges...
-[bleeping]
...and that sound means
that competition has just begun.
Let's check it out.
Bakers, give yourselves
a round of Sant-applause, 'cause, uh...
it's gonna be a naughty competition today,
or a nice one.
Also, look at this outfit.
Cannot wait to surprise the...
[laughing]
You've gotta be kidding me.
What?
We're honoring you today, Hunter.
Obviously,
we're all dressed for the occasion.
Couldn't be more excited
for our guest, Chris Bosh.
-I'm just glad the pajamas fit, you know?
-[laughter]
-That usually doesn't happen.
-Yeah!
Candace, what are our bakers
working on in this first round?
Well, Hunter, no one knows how to prepare
for the big day quite like Santa Claus.
So, to thank him for all his hard work,
we want our bakers to not just
give him the usual milk and cookies,
but actually bake up
some sweet and salty cupcakes.
And we also want their decoration
to be Santa-themed.
If it can fuel Santa, it can fuel us
for an episode of Sugar Rush.
-Santa needs somethin' sweet and salty.
-Okay.
-Bourbon?
-Chocolate? Chocolate?
-You do the lime, I'll do the chocolate.
-Okay.
-Let's do it our style.
-Spices. Mexican chocolate.
-You wanna?
-I'll bake it.
-Sweet and salty like a nut, but...
-Not peanuts?
-Not peanuts.
-What else?
-[gasps] Pepitas.
-Pepitas,all right.
-This is elf Crystal.
-This is elf Stephanie.
And we both live in Oceanside,
California.
I own Something Sweet Cakes and Cookies.
I own Segura's Baking Co.
It's an online bakery.
I've been married to my husband
for five years,
and we have a six-week-old son.
I currently have pregnancy brain,
so we'll see how it ends up.
[Crystal] Hopefully, no more
than ten minutes, we'll get it in.
We should be fine,
as long as I don't burn my butter.
[Crystal] Don't burn your butter.
Kristen and I met about a year ago.
-[woman] Crystal.
-My name's Crystal.
-What did I say?
-Kristen.
-Kristen!
-[both laugh]
Stephanie and I actually met about a year
ago, and now we're cake besties.
We are.
I'll get these on the stove
in about one minute.
[Crystal] We are doing
a brown butter cupcake
with a citrus cranberry compote filling,
top it with
a faux Swiss meringue buttercream,
salted pepitas.
We're topping that with a perfect
little envelope
from a child to Santa,
his little Christmas letter.
[Crystal] These will fly all over.
Watch your eyes.
[Stephanie] This butter needs to brown.
Come on, butter. Oh, there we go.
Brown butter adds a rich, rustic taste.
The darker I brown my butter,
the more flavor it gives the cupcake.
[Crystal] You want sea salt
or kosher salt?
[Stephanie] Regular.
Our salty element is pepitas.
[Crystal] It's a shelled pumpkin seed.
[Crystal] Holy schnikes. A lot of salt.
They're almost done.
-[Stephanie] Hurry up.
-I know.
Man, these cupcakes are gonna be sweet!
-You know why?
-Why?
-'Cause they have sugar in them.
-[laughs]
My name is Jon.
I am from El Paso, Texas, and
I am the owner of Bella Cora Bakery.
And I'm Ana, and I'm the pastry chef
at Bella Cora Bakery.
He used to be my instructor,
he's my mentor, now he's my boss.
Buttermilk. Oh, you already got some.
-You shoulda told me that was there! You...
-I told you.
-You probably told me...
-I told you.
...and I probably wasn't listening.
For our cupcake... We're actually doing
two, because we're crazy like that.
We are doing one
that's gonna resemble a Santa hat,
and that one's gonna be
a lime cupcake with a mango filling,
lime buttercream
with Tajín sprinkled on top.
Tajín has chili powder, lime and salt.
-You're making the lime ones, right?
-Yeah.
For the other cupcake, we're doing
a chocolate cupcake
with a caramelized banana filling,
a vanilla buttercream, some salted toffee,
and then we are creating a truffle,
and it's gonna be wrapped
as if it was Santa's sack.
The mango's done?
Mango jam's done.
It's a good texture. It's nice and tangy.
Cupcakes in the oven.
You good, babe?
-Yeah.
-Yes.
-You rollin'?
-So far so good.
All right, let's roll.
My name is Inda, I'm from Hampton Roads,
Virginia, and I am a cake artist.
My name is Trey, I'm her husband.
-I work for the power company.
-We knew each other in high school.
-Then we connected again and got married.
-We've been married eight years.
Let's see if I can make
this little Santa face look pretty good.
[Inda] We are making a bourbon smoked
sea salt chocolate cupcake,
top it with bourbon smoked sea salt
chocolate buttercream,
and it's gonna have a fondant disc.
It's the big guy himself, Santa.
Santa will love it, trust me.[chuckles]
Babe, a little thick.
-[Trey] Too thick?
-[Inda] It's fine.
[Trey] I'll thin it out a bit.
About 14 years ago, I was diagnosed with
a neurological movement disorder
called dystonia.
I had to quit my job as a pharmacy tech,
so I started baking just to prove
to myself that I can still have a career
after the other one was taken from me.
-You're a champ, babe.
-So... Yeah.
I'mma go ahead and
get these hats shaped up nicely.
Goin' in the oven, babe.
-Are you doing the batter?
-Yes.
Okay. We love challenges,
so we can't complain, right?
My name is Ruth.
I'm from San Diego, California.
I'm owner and baker of Dulcet Confections.
My name is Anna,
and I'm a plant-based cake designer.
I want to prove that
veganism is actually on the rise.
About a year ago, we became vendor friends
at a bridal show that we did.
We just kinda clicked.
Okay, here's the Mexican chocolate.
[Ruth] We are making a vegan
Mexican chocolate cupcake.
It is filled with a salted
caramel coconut date filling,
layered with roasted salted almonds
and a Mexican chocolate buttercream,
topped with an upside-down Santa
made out of fondant,
to represent him
falling into the cupcake.
-What are you looking for?
-I'm about to melt the butter.
[Ruth] We don't use regular butter,
we use vegan butter.
And we're also substituting vegetable oil
instead of eggs
to make our cupcake moist.
[Anna] Are you doing the batter still?
-[Ruth] Yes, I really need to get this in.
-[Anna] I heard you, mamacita.
[Crystal] Smells so good.
[Stephanie] Oh, perfect.
[Crystal] What can I do?
Start helping me.
Aah! I broke it.
Dude, these are so cute.
We write letters to Santa every year,
and this is all I think about.
My hands are shaking, dude.
[Stephanie] Crystal, you need to hurry.
Focus.
-Focus, focus!
-[Crystal] I know, I know, I know, I know!
Adriano, you're makin' a sweet and salty
cupcake this round, what are you doing?
I'd probably do Vegemite, honey, and yuzu.
-Vegemite? Enough with the Vegemite!
-What is Vegemite?
Vegemite is literally known for being,
like, one of those things
-only Australians like.
-Okay.
In school, I'd eat it out of the jar
to build confidence to ring up girls
and ask 'em on dates.
-Wait. How did that give you confidence?
-'Cause it's so salty and intense...
-It's like doing a shot or something?
-[laughter]
Popeye's got spinach,
Adriano's got Vegemite.
[laughter]
[Jon] We're in good shape. I'll take those
chocolate cupcakes out in a second.
-[Ana] Okay.
-[Jon] Next, truffle shells.
For my cupcake, we've got banana filling,
I've got my truffle shells,
and I've got this big Santa's pack
that need to go on top.
Finishing those truffles
starts to make you question,
"Should I really have done all of this?"
I tell you what, we might have been
a little off on our time.
All right, toffee?
Salty-sweet, that's the thing.
[Ana] Salty-sweet. It'll work.
[Jon, high-pitched]
"That's a salty cupcake."
-[Crystal] All I hear is your voice, Jon!
-Right? You're so loud!
[yells] That's the type of guy I am!
Try and concentrate!
If we're lucky,
we'll hear my voice all day.
Can't even hear my own thoughts!
-[Candace] Oh!
-[Chris laughs] Oh, oh!
Yeah, I love the competition.
It's really startin' to get
my... juices flowin'.
[laughing]
No stranger to competition,
and no stranger to the show.
Your kids watch, right?
Yes, they love it. All of 'em love baking.
It's a huge deal. This is a big deal.
This is a big deal!
Would you say
biggest moment of your career?
-Absolutely, by far.
-[all laughing]
[Inda] So now, let's get some icing going.
-Smells so good!
-Gracious.
[Inda] This is bourbon smoked sea salt.
We want them to taste the salt.
We were thinkin' about givin' Santa
somethin' that he will like
after a long night,
so it's infused with bourbon.
Man, it smells kinda strong, huh?
Tell me if it's too much bourbon.
Wow.
I definitely don't wanna
get Santa too drunk.
He still has to deliver toys for the kids.
-Got a nice little kick to it.
-Okay, good. Good.
Do these look good to you?
[Ruth] Too big. You wanna make 'em small.
The two salty ingredients that we have
are salted roasted almonds
and salted caramel sauce.
♪ Let's go, caramel, cup on the side ♪
-[Ruth] Don't forget the salt.
-Yeah. Girl, I got you.
-[Ruth] Okay.
-[Anna] I got you.
-[Ruth] I'll start on the little Santa.
-[Anna] Okay.
Some Santa legs will be
like he worked out,
others are like he had too many cookies.
[Anna laughs] That's fine.
[Ruth] How are the cupcakes?
[Anna] Oh, these are really small.
-They're kinda hard to, like, stand.
-[Ruth] We're gonna have to make it work.
We don't have time to redo the cupcakes.
[Anna] It's gonna work.
It's gonna have to work.
There goes the filling.
[Stephanie] You need to make the bows.
-[Ana] You want the banana filling inside?
-[Jon] Yup.
How's it lookin'?
-[Jon] Santa's comin' together.
-[Ana] Aww. Santa's cute.
[Ruth] How many more do I do?
-[Anna] Legs?
-[Ruth] Shoes.
-[Anna] Pairs?
-[Ruth] Shoes.
Okay, we might be the first.
Don't push 'em too hard. Are we good?
I think we're done.
-[bells jingle]
-Inda and Trey done!
Let's head on down
and, uh, try our first cupcake.
Holy crap, Trey and Inda are done.
Hi, Inda, hi, Trey.
-[Trey] Hey.
-[Inda] Hi.
[Hunter] Why don't you pass out your
cupcakes and tell us what you made?
Here we have our sleeping Santa.
Our cake is a Dutch chocolate cake.
It's infused with bourbon,
and our salty aspect
is bourbon-smoked sea salt.
Do we have to eat it with a fork?
-No.
-No, no. You can do it by hand.
[Inda] Eat it how you want.
-[Trey laughs]
-The cake is great, it's not too sweet.
I love the add of salt,
and that touch of bourbon in the back
makes you feel,
like, you know, "All right."
-All right.
-[Trey] Comatose?
"Tonight, it's a nice party."
-Thanks, Chris. Thank you.
-Thank you so much.
I like the simple decoration.
It's nice and thin, but effective.
I love chocolate and bourbon and
that smoky sea salt. It's a great combo.
Well, this is a very jolly Santa Claus.
He looks like he just enjoyed
a few of these cupcakes.
-Yes.
-You noticed.
It has such a tender crumb,
so soft and delicious.
It was really well balanced.
-Thank you.
-Thank you. Appreciate y'all.
Adriano, remind them
what they have to do in round two.
We want a confection
inspired by reindeer food.
It includes corn cereal, M&M's,
-pretzels, nuts, chocolate...
-Gotcha.
-You know, those kind of things.
-Yeah. Okay.
[Ruth] You wanna just be really careful.
[Anna] Stay, Santa. Stay.
-Ready? One, two, three.
-Ready? And, go!
-[bells jingle]
-[Hunter] Oh!
Looks like Anna and Ruth are done.
-Good luck. Have fun.
-Yes. Thank you so much.
-Pretzels, M&M's...
-How will we do it? Like a verrine?
-That's... Okay.
-Like...
-How's it going?
-Good, how are you?
Pass out your cupcakes,
tell us what you made.
[Ruth] We have upside-down Santa,
fell off his sleigh and
onto a Mexican chocolate cupcake
topped with
a Mexican chocolate buttercream.
The filling is salted caramel coconut date
with salted almonds.
[Anna] It is plant-based,
so it's totally vegan.
I have to say, I see why Santa fell in.
-[laughing]
-I have never had a vegan cupcake.
-So, thank you.
-Oh, good.
The crushed almonds
was really, really a nice flavor,
-and the natural sweetness...
-Yeah.
...that you guys are doin'.
-Yeah.
-It was really good
-and very festive for Christmas.
-Great.
Loved your vegan caramel in the middle.
I think my only note would just be
I would've loved a little bit more
of a hit on the salty notes.
-Oh, okay.
-Because with the caramel,
the frosting and the cupcake,
there was a lot of sweet,
a little light on the salty.
-[Anna] Okay. All righty.
-Okay.
I also didn't get enough salt and I wanted
the cupcake to be slightly bigger.
-Know what I mean?
-[Anna] Yeah.
With plant-based stuff, you gotta put
more batter in 'cause it doesn't have...
-A lot of rising.
-[Adriano] Yeah.
-A bit more volume.
-Yeah.
But I think it's our first
plant-based cupcake on the show.
-Cool.
-You guys have an hour 45 remaining.
How do you feel on time?
-We...
-We're good, we got this.
Get goin'! Good luck, bakers.
-Thank you.
-Thank you so much, appreciate it.
-Pretzel, the chocolate...
-Yeah.
And oatmeal, reindeers like oatmeal.
[Stephanie] We're the last two.
[Crystal] It's down to us, guys.
It's down to us.
-Did you taste the filling?
-[Stephanie] I trust you.
Yeah! This is taking me back to Mexico.
This is where the Mexican power comes in.
I hope the judges
don't think this is too spicy.
-Beautiful, Ana. Love it.
-[Ana] Thank you.
-That it? You got 'em all?
-[Stephanie] Press the buzzer!
-Go!
-All right.
-Whoo!
-[bells jingle]
Crystal and Stephanie just buzzed in.
Judges, let's head on down.
Hello.
Crystal, Stephanie.
-[Candace] Hello, ladies.
-[all] Hi.
-How are you guys?
-Great, how are you?
Why don't you pass out your cupcakes
and tell us what you made?
We made a brown butter cupcake.
It's filled with
a cranberry citrus compote,
and it's topped off with a faux Swiss
meringue and salted pepitas,
which are pumpkin seeds.
Oh, that's perfect.
-[Crystal] Oh, my God.
-[laughter]
We are ready to finish.
In case it's our only buzzer,
I want you to do it.
-[both laugh]
-Ay!
-[Ana] Ready?
-[Trey] Okay.
-[bells jingle]
-Gotta do it.
Oh, another team is done.
Jon and Ana, we'll get there in a second.
Chris, let's start with you.
Between the cranberry and the butter,
it's nice and light and not too sweet.
It's really good.
Your cupcake was so festive
for the holidays.
Your note from Santa was really fun.
I also wanna say, I love that your
wreath decoration was all edible.
That cupcake was super soft and buttery.
That tartness from the cranberry
in the middle
really brought
a lot of joy to eating the middle of it.
It was awesome.
Adriano, remind them
what they're doing in round two.
We wanna see a confection
that's inspired by reindeer treats.
If anyone can do it, it's elves.
We know what they like.
[laughter]
Bakers, we'll see you in a little bit.
We should go over the top
and do ice cream.
-Like...
-You wanna do ice cream?
-[Hunter] Hello.
-[Candace] Hi.
Talk us through your cupcakes.
[Trey] All right, so we have
a mango-lime-Tajín cupcake
and that was Ana's idea,
coming from Mexico,
and mine is a chocolate cupcake
with rum-banana filling,
golden toffee and truffle
covered with marzipan
-made to look like Santa's pack.
-Very ambitious of you
to do not just two cupcakes, but then also
all of these other edible adornments.
I thought the flavors
of your mango cupcake
-were really successful.
-[Trey] Awesome.
Working with that Tajín
was a really clever way to go.
Thank you.
But on your chocolate cupcake scale-wise,
Santa's bag was definitely bulky.
The texture of the frosting was delicious.
I wanted more punch in the salt.
And the mango and lime cupcake,
I love the Tajín on top.
It's a great saltiness and a bit of spice.
-A beautiful cupcake.
-Thank you. Awesome.
Chocolate and rum is really good.
I will say more of the saltiness
would've been a nice flavor.
In this one, you get a lot of Tajín
in the initial bite
but then you eventually work your way
to the fruity center.
This was an adventure right here.
-In a good way.
-Thank you.
-You have an hour 28 remaining.
-We will do our best.
Good luck, bakers. See you in a bit.
-Judges, we have a decision to make.
-[all] Thanks.
Let's head to the judges' table.
We wanna make, like... like a...
like, a mousse.
-We're good at that.
-Sure.
Judges.
Four cupcakes down, but only three
can make it to the confection round.
Let's start with
who had our favorite cupcakes.
For overall presentation and flavor,
I'm gonna have to give to Inda and Trey.
Their Santa Claus was really fun
but also thin enough to be edible,
and the smokiness,
the bourbon, the chocolate,
they were all working together
really harmoniously.
They really hit that salt note,
really well.
The cake was very, very light and fluffy.
And then just that nice smoked salt
was really, really cool.
So, you know, the sweet and salty balance
was really good.
-Who had your other favorite?
-As far as originality,
I'll go with Crystal and Stephanie.
I've never had pepitas
on a cupcake before.
Crystal and Stephanie brought us
a cupcake a bit different.
I really loved the butteriness of it.
That little cranberry jam in the middle
was really delicious when you ate it.
The richness
of that brown-butter cupcake...
The pepitacrunch
added that nice saltiness,
and their wreath was all edible.
It was just amazing.
It sounds like we're all in agreement
about our top two favorites for the round.
So why are Ruth and Anna, and Jon and Ana
in your bottom two cupcakes?
Ruth and Anna gave us
a great plant-based cupcake,
but for me it was missing in volume
and missing in the salt.
They delivered a really nice vegan cupcake
but it just was very sweet to me.
They missed the salt part
-of the sweet and salty challenge.
-I will agree. Not enough salt.
The cupcake kind of fell apart
a little bit.
And as far as the presentation,
I think they did kind of
fall a little short there.
Jon and Ana
had a problem to me with scale.
Their decorations were a fun idea,
but it just was so bulky, it overpowered
the entire presentation of the cupcake.
I love the ambitious nature
that they attacked it with.
But if they probably would have
focused on the lime cupcake,
we'd be having a different conversation
right now,
because that was salt and sweet.
They did such a great job.
He must have done 15 different components
for those two cupcakes,
which takes you out of the game a bit.
I was missing the salt on one of them.
I thought the other was delicious.
Mixed emotions there.
Okay, judges, it sounds like
you have come to a decision.
I will go and let our bakers know.
Bakers, can I have your attention, please?
Our judges have made their first decision.
And the team
with their favorite cupcake is...
Crystal and Stephanie.
Congratulations. You have won the round
with the favorite cupcake.
You're safe from elimination.
And because we're in the Christmas spirit,
we wanna give you each
a brand new espresso maker
-to put a pep in your step.
-Really?
[Stephanie] Thank you!
Unfortunately, that means
that one of the remaining three teams
will be going home right now.
And the team with our judges'
least favorite cupcake this round is...
Ruth and Anna.
Okay.
We're so sorry.
Your guys' flavors were incredible,
you impressed us
with your plant-based cupcake,
there just wasn't enough salt
-in the sweet and salty challenge.
-Sorry.
[Hunter] Your time in the Sugar Rush
kitchen has run out.
Doing this competition took me
completely out of my comfort zone,
but I had a great experience.
We're still gonna stay positive,
and we'll be coming out winners.
[Hunter] Great job.
-Love, love, love.
-Bye.
I'm still gonna continue on
making these beautiful vegan cakes.
I'll keep pushing forward.
This is not holding me back.
I'm gonna cry, so...
All right, bakers,
you have one hour, six minutes left.
Keep going on those confections.
You know what, white chocolate chips,
but I think as far as tempering,
-this is probably better.
-Okay. Work the crust first.
For our reindeer confections,
we're making a reindeer food verrine.
We're going to have a pretzel crust
with cookie butter cheesecake filling,
and it's gonna be topped
with crumbles of Biscoff cookies
and chocolate bark.
Oh, it smells good.
I have to work on a cheesecake
to set in time
while Trey works on the bark.
[Trey] Gotta get this, uh...
chocolate tempered right.
Trey, go ahead and spread it out.
Not too thin, baby.
[Trey] It's gonna consist
of white chocolate,
pretzels, M&M's and Chex Mix.
-[Inda] Hurry, put it in the fridge!
-You're like a drill sergeant.
We don't wanna fall behind.
[Crystal] I am working on a custard
to start the ice cream.
[Stephanie] Get it hot fast, Crystal.
[Crystal] I'm tryin'. I'm tryin'.
For our confection round,
we are making a baked North Pole
in the shape of a carrot.
It's basically a baked Alaska, but...
-We're from the North Pole.
-Yeah.
[Crystal] The bottom layer
is a vanilla malt spongecake
with a vanilla bean ice cream,
mixed in with our reindeer food,
and everything will be covered
with a fire-toasted Italian meringue.
[Crystal] Smells so good!
I love making baked Alaskas.
I mean, it can't get better
than cake and ice cream.
-[Jon] You good?
-[Ana] Mm.
[Jon] I believe in you.
All right. I'll start peeling apples
over here.
[Jon] In El Paso,
kids like to make reindeer chow,
and it's like oats and sprinkles
that they throw outside.
But then there's also things
literal reindeer would eat, like apples.
We're wanting to make something whimsical
that incorporates
a little of all of that into it.
-[Jon] Oh, start the caramelized cinnamon.
-[Ana] Yeah, I'm scaling it.
For our reindeer confection, we are going
to make a cinnamon oat streusel base
with a caramelized cinnamon mousse,
a filling of apples and cranberry.
On the sides, we're gonna make
caramelized Rice Krispies.
[Jon] Pour, pour, pour, pour, pour... stop.
[sighing] Oh, man. That clock.
-Whew!
-[Jon] Moment of truth is coming, Ana.
[Inda] Oh, my goodness,
this smells so good.
All right. Let's check your bark.
We're almost done with our confection,
and I'm feeling good about it.
Uh-oh. I think we might have
had it in there a little bit too long.
I realize that the reindeer food is not
sticking to the chocolate bark.
This only has pretzels. Somebody's
gonna be like, "I didn't get a..."
-"Where's my M&M?"
Yeah.
Making more chocolate
would just set us back.
Get the ones that have the pretzels
already inside the chocolate, okay?
We can just throw
an M&M in there and on top.
It's good, it's good, it's good.
-Ready?
-Yeah.
-[bells jingle]
-[Hunter] Inda and Trey!
First team to buzz in yet again.
-Judges, let's try our first confection.
-Man.
-My God, they're done already?
-I know.
Holy moly.
-Hi, Inda, hi, Trey.
-[Inda] Hi.
-How are you?
-How you doin'? I'm fantastic.
First ones done yet again.
Pass out your confection
and tell us about your reindeer food.
[Inda] We have for you
reindeer food verrines,
pretzel crust on the bottom,
a cookie butter no-bake cheesecake,
and then we have Biscoff crumbles
and chocolate bark on top.
Well, you definitely got all the flavors
of reindeer food in there
and you got the sweet and the salty
and the crunchy and the creamy.
Thought it was a really clever spin
to do the cookie butter.
My only note would be that the consistency
of the cheesecake itself
-was a bit gooey, almost.
-Okay.
-It wasn't quite the creamy consistency...
-Yeah.
-...I was looking for.
-Yeah.
-I got you. All right.
-Okay. Thanks.
[Adriano] You definitely packed a lot in,
a lot of flavor in all those cookie notes.
The only thing I would say is I wanted
more salt. Other than that, well done.
Love the cookie butter,
but you guys could've definitely
used more of the pretzels
-to kind of balance out that gooeyness.
-Right.
But I'm definitely going to be making
reindeer treats
-with my kids now, for sure.
-That's right, Chris.
-All right.
-Bakers, you banked quite a bit of time.
I assume this is part of your strategy?
-Yes. Every minute counts.
-Definitely.
-Great. Good luck. See you in a while.
-Thank you!
-Thanks. Thanks a lot.
-[Inda] Thank you.
How do you feel about that?
-It went well.
-Good. Yeah, yeah.
-Get ready for nitrogen.
-Yep.
So I'm in charge of the ice cream.
The ears were not a great idea.
I've never worked
with liquid nitrogen before.
I can't see anything!
I really feel like a mad elf scientist.
It's getting there. All right, stop.
[Crystal] Oh, it looks so good.
[Stephanie] Oh, perfect.
[Crystal] I'mma trust you.
-Is it good?
-Yeah, it's really good.
I have the white chocolate ready,
and streusel is done.
This is the most high-pressure
baking situation I've ever been in.
-You're scaling the Rice Krispies?
-Rice Krispies.
It's a lot of elements to one dessert.
And the most important element
is the caramelized Rice Krispies.
Rice Krispie treats in here.
You boil up a sugar syrup,
dump in Rice Krispies and start stirring.
Slowly what happens is
the temperature goes higher and higher,
until finally
that sugar starts to caramelize.
[Jon] It smells like Christmas!
It's not burning, I promise.
[Jon] These are the most fantastic things
any human has ever put in their mouths.
We are confident
that if we can get that to the judges,
it's gonna blow their minds.
-Something smells burnt.
-Huh?
[sniffs]
[Stephanie] Oh, he's got...
Smells like burning. Did you burn it?
-[Jon] Uhh... Ana.
-[Ana] What?
[Jon laughs]
Scale 'em again, 'cause I burned 'em.
I burned the Rice Krispies.
We need to make them again.
[scoffs]
I hope this doesn't set us back
a lot of time.
Not gonna take long, don't worry.
[Crystal] Chop up some peppermint
to give it, like, a little bit of mint.
Inside vanilla bean ice cream, we're also
going to be mixing in reindeer food.
[Crystal] Forget anything? Peppermint?
M&M's? Almonds? Chocolate?
Nope. I'll start plating.
-You can tort.
-Yeah!
[Ana] This'll make the plate
a little bit more festive.
[Jon] Cool beans.
I didn't burn 'em that time.
-[Crystal] Okay, run.
-[Stephanie] You got it.
-You got it. Yeah. Go. Run, run, run!
-I'm doing it?
-Ooh!
-[bells jingle]
All right, Crystal and Stephanie done.
Judges,
let's go try our second confection.
Okay, Crystal and Stephanie.
These are incredible looking.
[Crystal] Thank you.
Why don't you pass them out
and tell us about
your reindeer food-inspired confection?
We did a malted vanilla cake.
The ice cream is a vanilla bean
with reindeer food.
Then we topped it off
with Italian meringue and we torched it.
[Crystal] And the stems
is, uh, wafer paper.
I'm gonna start filling.
[Jon] Nice.
-[Ana] You hit the buzzer this time.
-Yay!
[bells jingle]
-Oh! Jon and Ana, done.
-Ooh!
We'll get there in a second. Candace,
thoughts for Crystal and Stephanie?
What an inventive ice-cream cake.
Making it look like a carrot to feed
the reindeer was just such a clever idea.
And all the different textures,
and temperatures, and flavors in there,
-it was a delicious mouthful.
-Thank you.
-Yay.
-Look, reindeer'll be lining up for this.
-[laughs]
-The only thing I'd say is,
a bit less peppermint.
-Amazing presentation. Well done.
-Thanks.
-Thank you.
-[Hunter] Chris.
You guys blew me away with the creativity
and puttin' the crunch, saltiness
and the sweet in there, it was excellent.
-Thank you.
-Thanks very much.
You banked 26 minutes and 33 seconds,
-How do you feel about time?
-Okay. It's gonna be okay.
-We got it! We got this.
-We finished!
-[laughter]
-Jon and Ana buzzed in, so, judges,
let's turn right around and try our third
and final confection.
-Thank you, bakers.
-[both] Thanks.
Okay, Jon and Ana, how's it goin'?
-Hey, we made it.
-[Hunter] You did.
-[Candace] Yes, you did.
-[Hunter] Tell us what you made.
[Ana] On the bottom,
it's an oatmeal streusel,
caramelized cinnamon mousse,
and then in the middle,
you have apples and cranberries,
and then
caramelized Rice Krispies on the side.
[Hunter] We were wondering how
you would do just one dessert.
-It's by putting four desserts into one.
-[laughing]
-Ah! Nah, nah, nah, nah.
-Yeah.
Chris, what are your thoughts?
Putting the holiday flavors in there
with the apple, cinnamon and cranberry,
keepin' it festive, it's great.
You packed in the reindeer treats.
These crispy things on the outside,
they're so crunchy, delicious,
-I could sit and eat them by the bagful.
-Yeah.
[Candace] Well, this presentation
is so whimsical,
and yet still so precise and flawless.
The lushness of this mousse
was great against the crunchiness
of that oatmeal streusel.
It came together beautifully. Well done.
You were the last ones done,
but you still banked
24 minutes and 13 seconds.
-How do you feel about that time?
-It's the time we have,
-so I feel very positive.
-Yeah!
[all laughing]
We have a decision to make, judges.
Let's head back to the judges' table.
-Thank you.
-[Hunter] Thanks, bakers.
[Ana] Whew!
I was trying to high-five you, dork.
-What...
-[laughing]
Okay, so only two teams
can make it to the final cake round.
Unfortunately,
we need to eliminate someone right now.
Before we do that,
who had your favorite confection?
Jon and Ana brought such delicious flavors
with those warm spices in their mousse,
as well as that delicious apple-y inside.
And the adorable reindeer prints on top.
It was really memorable for me.
Sort of warm, cinnamon flavor
reminded me of cinnamon cereal.
It had those crispy Rice Krispie treat
things on the outside, it was delicious.
It was really creative,
but most importantly, really good.
They're on fire right now.
Now that we know who our favorite is,
it's time to eliminate someone.
I think Inda and Trey played
that strategy game today,
to play it simple, bank a lot of time.
And they put up
a really delicious dessert.
I mean, that cookie butter cheesecake
was yummy.
They did rise to the challenge in terms
of bringing the reindeer food flavor.
But I would've liked to have seen
a little more finesse.
I think it was a bit simple, but overall,
they did pack in a lot of reindeer treats,
it added a lot of crunch.
The idea was there,
it was just maybe a little rushed.
Crystal and Stephanie
gave us such a playful presentation.
I love how they incorporated
the malt flavor into the cake
and the inclusions into their ice cream.
Putting the peppermint ice cream
inside of the carrot,
that was just really
a festive holiday twist.
They had the best texture, but in the end,
it all just tasted like peppermint to me.
There was too much of it.
I'm freaking out a little bit,
but I think it'll be okay.
-We wait and see what the judges feel.
-[Inda] Yes.
Judges, it seems like
you have made a decision.
I will go ahead and let our bakers know.
Okay, bakers. Our judges have made
their second decision.
And before we make an elimination,
the team with their favorite confection
today is...
Jon and Ana.
Very well done, bakers.
You are safe from elimination.
And since it's Christmas,
we're gifting you both
brand new dehydrators.
-You can do tasty reindeer jerky all year.
-Yeah!
-Yes! Reindeer jerky, wow.
-That's awesome.
-[Ana laughs]
-[Jon] We were just feeding them,
-and now we're eating them.
-[laughing]
Unfortunately, that means that
one of our two remaining teams,
Crystal and Stephanie, Inda and Trey,
one of you has to go home.
And the team with our judges'
least favorite confection this round is...
-Trey and Inda. We're so sorry.
-Aww. All right.
But your time in the Sugar Rushkitchen
has run out.
-[Inda] Aw, thank you so much.
-[Trey] Thank you.
When I started baking out of necessity,
I would've never imagined
that I would've come
all the way here to Sugar Rush.
-Thank you.
-[Hunter] You guys did so good.
I'm so happy to have my husband here
going through this journey with me, and...
it's been, like, one of
the greatest experiences of my life.
I'm proud of you, babe.
[Trey] Sugar Take Your Time.
That's what it should be called.
Not Sugar Rush!
-Yeah, Sugar Take Your Time.
-[both laughing]
Congratulations, Ana and Jon,
Crystal and Stephanie,
you are moving on to the final cake round.
We need you to use your time
to make us an Advent calendar cake.
The cake must be
a functional Advent calendar,
where we can open
a numbered section and find a surprise.
At least four sections of your cake
need to open so our judges can see inside.
Ana and Jon, you banked
24 minutes and 13 seconds.
We're gonna add three hours to that,
giving you a total of three hours,
24 minutes and 13 seconds.
Crystal and Stephanie,
you banked 26 minutes and 33 seconds.
We'll add three hours to that,
giving you a total
of three hours, 26 minutes and 33 seconds.
And because you banked more time,
you'll be starting first.
-Crystal and Stephanie, are you ready?
-[both] We're ready.
-Your time starts in three, two, one.
-[bleeping]
Good luck, bakers.
-All right.
-All right.
Jon and Ana, hang out for a minute.
Advent calendar, I'm thinking ornaments.
Circular, we can put something inside.
For our design, we're doing a 3D tree
with little gingerbread men, bows...
[Crystal] A little wafer paper
note to Santa...
[Stephanie] And ornaments,
and inside of them are gonna be treats.
The judges pull out a treat
and see if they've been naughty or nice.
-Coal for naughty?
-Yeah.
-What should we do for nice?
-Um, like, a bonbon?
We are deciding to do a Black Forest cake,
which is a rich chocolate cake
with a diplomat cream filling
and a brandied cherry compote filling.
We're going to cover it
with a faux Swiss meringue buttercream
and some chocolate ganache
with some fondant accents,
and finish it all off
with some buttercream rosettes.
[Crystal] All the alcohol.
Whew! That brandy is strong.
[Hunter] Ana and Jon, your time starts in
-three, two, one.
-[bleeping]
Okay.
-Big rectangle. We need something tall.
-We can do that.
-It's Christmas... that's a tree.
-Oh. Tree?
I can make it out of meringue.
-I can stack it up...
-Do it. I love it.
[Jon] For our Advent calendar cake,
we are going to make a mousse cake.
We're gonna cover it in chocolate plaques
that are numbered.
We're planning on having one distinct tree
that represents each day of the month,
and on the top, a meringue tree.
For the judges, we plan on making
little chocolate cubes
that look like presents
that they can smash their way into.
-What are you doing, what am I?
-I'll start with cakes.
-Okay.
-Let's do it.
[Jon] We are going to make a mousse cake
with bittersweet chocolate mousse,
three layers of devil's food cake,
raspberry jam,
and then
a chocolate hazelnut crispy layer.
We wanna really just try to be
completely different
than anything that any other contestant
has ever done on Sugar Rush.
Mixer's on.
Jon's gonna be more in charge
of actually building the cake,
while I'm gonna be more in charge of doing
the things that go on top to decorate.
[Jon] The batter looks amazing.
-They're all ready to go.
-[Ana] Oven?
[groans]
[sniffles] Aah!
-I have to dump it.
-What happened?
I accidentally mixed up the baking powder
-and the baking soda.
-[laughs]
I am having mommy brain.
Now that I have to redo my cake batter,
I basically lost 15 minutes.
I'm sorry.
If it's going to happen,
I'd rather it happen now.
[Stephanie] We're going up against
Jon and Ana.
I feel we've been neck and neck
this whole competition.
I'm a little nervous, but I really think
the competition between our two teams
-will really push us both to do our best.
-[Stephanie] Yeah.
This is a bad idea!
For the meringue decorations,
I have to make
a big batch of Italian meringue,
then I'm gonna divide that meringue
and color it different colors.
All right, I'm just gonna start a pipe.
This meringue's...
I'm gonna try to go as fast as I can.
[Jon] As soon as the cakes come out,
we wanna get our meringues
into the oven and drying out.
Because if they're not dried,
then it's just gonna be a big, goopy mess.
You okay, Ana?
[Ana] Piping, piping meringues.
We're making a treat for each day.
[Jon] Maybe it's a meringue lollipop
or a sugar cookie or pecan puffs.
Something that represents
each day of the month.
Oh, my God!
[Crystal] These are gonna be
for the ornaments.
It's called "Crystal makes a giant mess."
We want to make shells for the ornaments,
so what I've decided to do
is take circle molds
and fill them to the top
with our melted red chocolate,
and then dump the rest out
and give it a little shake.
Come on. Whoo, Nelly!
So I can then scrape the top off,
get those in the blast freezer,
and they're gonna harden up
to, like, a perfect shell
for each of our ornaments
to hold a little tree.
[Jon] This is the most important bavarois
I've ever made in my life.
I've never used a smaller spatula.
[Jon] I have to make a mousse,
which is... we call it a bavarois.
It's going to provide
a lot of flavor and texture.
And then, once I've got everything made,
I can start putting it all on my frame
and layering it up.
-[Jon] Buildin' the frame for the cake.
-[Ana] Okay.
We have these cool plexiglass bars.
[Jon] We have a really unique process
for building cakes.
I can assemble a frame
out of plexiglass bars
and glue them together with chocolate.
It'll be able to give us enough height
on our cake to fit all the elements in.
Like cake architects.
[Jon] You made
a serious amount of crisp here.
[Ana] The mousse,
that's gonna make a thicker layer
than the crispy layer in there
and the raspberry jam.
I feel like Jon is, like,
this mad scientist man over there.
Hell, yeah. It's a mousse cake, right?
Those cakes move a lot more.
So it'll be interesting
to see how they go, you know?
I think the surprise, the finishing...
-There's a lot to do.
-Right.
These are both very...
You can tell, very ambitious projects.
Might've been a little much on the mousse
on the first go. That's way too much.
[Jon] Technical precision is very
important to assemble a cake like this,
getting really even layers that you can
see are exactly a certain thickness.
[Crystal] That one's done.
Yup. These are done.
I'll start stacking.
Just tell me if I'm doing it wrong.
[Crystal] As I start stacking
some of the layers of the cake,
I'm using rice cereal and then buttercream
to hold everything together,
so once we get our buttercream
on there, nothing's gonna fall apart.
All right, bakers,
you have two hours left.
-[Stephanie] Do the structure this hour.
-Okay. Okay.
-[Stephanie] Then focus on decorations.
-[Crystal] Okay.
[Stephanie] I'm on my last layer.
All right, I'm gonna start carving.
[Ana] All right, Jon. What is left to do?
Make peanut brittle,
chocolate cubes, fill the cubes,
deco cubes, white chocolate flags,
glaze the top of the cake,
assemble the... Christmas tree,
-and put all the stuff on top.
-Okay.
[Jon] And win the contest.
Yeah.
[Ana] This Advent calendar cake needs
to be functional, not just for show.
So we are creating
sealed boxes of chocolate
for them to break them up.
Hopefully, they'll have fun.
[high-pitched] Peanut brittle's done!
[Ana] We're gonna put peanut brittle in,
and some other mixed surprises in there.
It's a lot of elements to one dessert.
It's the most stressful time of the year.
[laughs]
-[Jon] What have you got for me, cookies?
-[Ana] Cookies? Okay. Coming.
[Hunter] All right, bakers,
you have 45 minutes left.
-[Jon] Thank you.
-You're welcome.
[Crystal] I buy my girls
little Advent calendars every year.
The ornaments remind me
of the little doors,
so we are doing
fondant numbers on the front
and little tiny chocolate doorknobs for
the judges to pull them off of the cake.
The judges don't know, but the evens
are nice and the odds are naughty.
[Crystal] Make extra for me.
[Stephanie] For the nice element,
we're making chocolate bonbons,
and then for our naughty element...
-Like that?
-[Crystal] Yeah, rough and rustic.
...we're making our lumps of coal
out of Oreos, marshmallows, and butter.
[Crystal] Please be careful.
[Jon] I am making white chocolate plaques.
I painted a sheet of plastic
with cocoa butter.
Then I have to temper
some white chocolate, spread it over,
let it set a little bit, and then
cut it with this cool contraption.
[Jon] On the sides, we're gonna
cover the cake in chocolate tiles
that are numbered
all the way up to day 20.
They're a very big element
of the theme of the Advent calendar.
So, I know that
we've just gotta get it done.
Jon and Ana, cutting the tape
that's holding the plexiglass together?
The moment we've all been waiting for.
-[Adriano] Hey!
-[Hunter] It's off.
-And five layers aren't spilling out now!
-Seeping out?
[Jon] Soon as I get these on, we begin...
[Ana] To put everything on top.
Sugar, to make it snow.
All right. It snowed on the cake.
[whirring]
[splutters]
[Stephanie] Right now, I'm trying
to put these treats in the chocolate shell
and pop them on the cake.
Crystal, I need your help.
-[Stephanie] Rosettes first.
-[Crystal] They gotta go first.
[Stephanie] They're not sticking.
[Crystal] I'm using the buttercream
as a glue to hold everything together.
I have never piped
buttercream rosettes so fast.
My hands are hurting so bad,
they're starting to cramp.
[Crystal] Get the numbers.
We'll worry about everything else after.
Bakers, you have 20 minutes left.
[Jon] Twenty minutes.
I didn't forget any numbers.
Nailed it.
Are we allowed to say "nailed it"?
I'll take the meringues out.
We can start assembling, right?
I am not calm at this point.
We still have to put everything
on top of the cake,
we have to build the meringue cake,
bring all the cookies,
we have to put 'em on top of the cake.
[Ana squeals] I just broke one.
I'm gonna try to not freak out
and try to glue this together.
[Jon] I think it looks like a star.
It's yellow and kind of pointy shaped.
Must be a star.
-Okay, don't touch it.
-[Ana] Okay.
-Don't touch it.
-[laughs]
All right, bakers,
you have ten minutes left.
[Jon] Ten minutes!
I like that Jon repeats
the things that I say.
It makes me feel like a head chef.
He's your sous chef.
Aaah! I'm goin' crazy.
Time is starting to really run out,
and we need to get all of the details
we possibly can onto the cake.
Make it look nice.
The back of this cake is kinda plain.
So I decide to texture the cake.
It's like it's in a forest.
[Crystal] I am making as many
little fondant bows as I can.
-What else? Make a fondant star.
-[Stephanie] Okay.
[Crystal] We're trying to get
as much decor on there as we can,
so we add our little note from our child
and a little Santa envelope
to bring in from round one.
-It's so cute.
-Yeah.
-[sighs] Almost lost an ear.
-[Hunter] Thirty seconds!
[Ana] So cute.
-[judges] Three, two, one.
-[Hunter] Stop touching the cake!
Everyone, hands up.
Judges, let's head on down to the cakes.
Okay, Crystal and Stephanie.
-Judges, are you ready to see...
-[both] Hi, guys.
-Oooh!
-...a very, very adorable
-Advent calendar cake?
-That looks great.
-What does it say?
-[Candace and Adriano] "I've been good."
Wow. We know
Candace didn't write that. Okay.
-[laughter]
-Ohh!
Okay. Crystal, Stephanie,
please walk us through your cake.
I have two daughters,
and we do this every year.
-Not this grand, this is upscale.
-[laughter]
[Crystal] But we went ahead
and we did a Christmas tree,
and we did some chocolate ornaments
on the front, and those can be removed
-to reveal your treat inside.
-Ooh!
Some are naughty, and some are nice.
Judges, what do you think
about the design of the cake?
-Chris?
-It's super cool.
[laughter]
I mean, I didn't know what to expect.
We only saw the back, and I saw you guys
really, really working. It's very cool.
I like the piping work on the front,
the little ornaments. It's a great job.
[both] Thank you.
It was so much fun to see this reveal,
because the cake
is pretty simple in the back,
but it's all party in front.
Thank you.
-Chris, whatever one you want.
-All right.
This one's speakin' to me.
Pull the whole thing. Okay.
-Is that a lump of coal? Oh, man.
-[Crystal] It is a lump of coal!
-So...
-Can I eat it?
-You absolutely can.
-Yeah, you can.
This is what I do with lumps of coal.
[growls]
[Candace laughing]
[Crystal] Did you get coal?
-I got the same.
-[Crystal] You did!
-He got coal as well.
-[Stephanie] No!
-[Crystal] Oh, no!
-Not trending in your favor, Candace.
-I know, we're going on a slope here.
-[Candace] Ohh...
[gasps]
-I got a present!
-[Adriano] Oh!
-[Crystal] Yay! Candace has been nice.
-Oh, my gosh, what a treat.
Thank you, ladies, thank you, Santa.
I guess I've been good this year.
Okay, I'm picking number 12.
-[Crystal] What did you get?
-You can guess what I got!
-[Adriano] Well, isn't that special?
-[Crystal] Yay, good.
The pulling of the Advent calendar
was a big part of the challenge.
How did our bakers do?
When I can walk up to a cake
and just be surprised and delighted,
that's my favorite thing.
And you did that today.
-Thank you very much.
-Yes.
Well done, bakers.
The only thing left to do
is to cut us four slices
of your Advent calendar cake.
See you at the judges' table.
-Absolutely, thank you.
-Thank you.
And, judges, we're turning
right around to Jon and Ana.
They're so cute.
-[Hunter] Jon and Ana.
-[Ana] Hey. Hello.
-What an incredible Advent calendar cake.
-[Jon] Thank you.
[Ana] So, we tried to make
a treat for every day.
Everything on top, it's edible.
We have four boxes that you can take off
and break off with your mini rolling pins.
I don't wanna tell you what it is,
I want you to discover it.
I love how you took
a more pâtisserie-style cake
and made it into a grand scale.
I love what you've done
with your meringues,
making them into the lollipops,
building them into a Christmas tree
that's your focal point.
It feels almost like
Candy Land meets Christmas.
I really like the visual.
You've really packed it full of color.
You went for a pâtisserie-style cake
which is fun, we don't see a lot of that.
I'm excited to crack into that box.
This is festive, probably
the most festive thing I've ever seen.
[laughter]
Each of you wants to take one of
the chocolate cubes on each corner.
And then one of
the little wooden rolling pins.
Go ahead and give it a... a good whack.
-Good whack?
-[Jon] Good.
-She's...
-[Candace] Do we need safety goggles?
-Ooh! There you go.
-Yeah.
-[Candace] Wow.
-There you go.
-[Jon] Okay.
-Okay! [laughing]
-[Candace] No... Whoo!
-[Hunter] Whoo!
-I gave it a good whack.
-So, inside you have a pecan puff,
-a chocolate sablé and peanut brittle.
-[Candace] Mmm!
-This is a good peanut brittle.
-[both] Thank you.
What do you think about our little
personal Advent calendar boxes?
Well, I think it was part
Advent calendar box and part piñata.
[laughter]
It was like... just a celebration.
Super fun, super delicious,
I really enjoyed it.
I love the whole interaction and theater.
-I felt accomplished opening that.
-[laughter]
And my kids love confetti, so,
you know, that was like a nice surprise.
Well, you definitely gave us a fun time,
now we're excited for a tasty one.
Go ahead and cut us four slices,
and we will see you at the judges' table.
[all] Thank you.
Okay, judges, let's go ahead and start
with Crystal and Stephanie's cake.
[Crystal] We did a Black Forest cake.
So we did a rich chocolate cake.
The filling is a sturdy diplomat cream
with a cherry compote,
and mini chocolate chips.
We finished it
with a faux Swiss meringue buttercream.
Crystal and Stephanie, your cake was
really an Advent calendar to behold.
I love the interactive nature
of being able to pull out an ornament
and see whether
I had been naughty or nice,
and my bonbon inside was really delicious.
Your cake itself is very tender.
I loved the juiciness
of those cherries inside.
The layers themselves
looked a bit rough and uneven.
It wasn't a very elegant slice.
But it definitely tasted delicious.
It was a very lovely Black Forest cake.
-Thank you.
-Thank you.
Crystal and Stephanie,
I love all the red little Advent boxes,
I thought that was very well done.
Flavor of the cake, I love the mousseline.
It was nice and light.
Delicious cake,
I could eat that any day of the week.
Thank you.
I love cherries, I love cream,
I love chocolate, and buttercream.
So, I'm an easy sell.
It was a true classic Black Forest cake.
My favorite part was just
how moist the cake was.
That's always...
You know, my cakes are not that moist.
Okay, judges. Let's go ahead
and switch to Jon and Ana's cake.
We have a devil's food cake
with a chocolate bavarois,
which is chocolate, crème anglaise,
and whipped cream folded together,
paired with a raspberry jam
and a chocolate hazelnut crisp.
Jon and Ana,
I love how you married this idea
of fine pâtisserie with
a grander scale decorated cake.
I think you pulled it off beautifully.
The cake itself,
true refinement, true elegance,
and sophistication on a plate.
The layers are creamy, tender, crunchy,
tangy, everything I want in a bite.
Thank you.
Jon and Ana, I loved the rolling pin,
it was interactive.
There was so much surprise,
there's a party going on in those boxes.
Everything inside tasted delicious,
it was full of color.
The taste of your cake, I love the crunch,
it added in a bit of texture in there.
The only thing I would say is
those raspberry jelly layers
need to be thicker.
It's an intense cake, and I think
it needs a bit more of that raspberry
-to really level it out.
-Okay.
I like smashin' things.
-[laughing]
-And so that was a lot of fun to me.
The cake is awesome.
Kind of piggy-backing on what he said,
you could've definitely put
more raspberries in there,
but it was great.
-Thank you.
-Thank you.
Thank you, bakers.
You've both done incredible.
There's only thing left to do,
and that is for our judges to decide
who's going home with $10,000.
Chris.
First of all, I'd like
to thank all of you guys.
This has been tremendous to watch,
so thank you for puttin' it all out there.
Crystal and Stephanie,
the cake was delicious. Very moist.
Jon and Ana, the Winter Wonderland
playground, so to speak,
was very creative and it was very festive.
You guys really, really
made it tough for me.
But my favorite is...
Jon and Ana.
Jon and Ana, that's one vote for you today
in the Sugar Rush Christmaskitchen.
One more vote means
you're going home with $10,000.
Adriano. Who had your favorite cake?
Jon and Ana, your cake was super moist,
lots of texture, I love the fun of it,
and the surprise inside
was, uh, very enjoyable.
Crystal and Stephanie,
you had a delicious, soft cake.
I loved how your ornaments
were all set out nicely.
The piping texture all around it
gave it a really good finish.
Today, my vote's gonna go with...
-Jon and Ana.
-Jon and Ana, congratulations!
You've just won $10,000
in the Sugar Rush Christmaskitchen.
Very, very well done.
Candace, how would you have voted?
I would've voted for Jon and Ana.
I thought the amount of technical skill
they showed was remarkable.
Amazing, let's go congratulate our bakers!
[Ana squeals]
Even though we didn't win,
I'm really proud of us.
-I'm so proud of what we were able to do.
-We are.
[Crystal] This was
the most amazing experience.
-[Stephanie] We had so much fun.
-[Crystal] So much.
-I'm just so thankful to have done this.
-Me too.
[Hunter] Congrats, man, awesome.
I'm like...
Is this real? Is this happening?
-I'm so proud of my friend.
-Aww!
[Jon] I know I could not have done
anything like this on my own,
and so I'm tremendously proud
to have such an accomplished
pastry chef by my side.
[Ana] I wouldn't be who I am without him.
This is the best Christmas present ever.
Thank you for watching
this episode of Sugar Rush Christmas.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays.
The baking competition where
time is the most important ingredient.
Four teams of brilliant bakers
battle it out for sugary success
over three rounds of competition,
-racing against each other and the clock.
-[chimes]
The faster they work, the better, because
any time saved in round one, cupcakes,
and round two, confections,
will be banked and added
to their third and final round, cakes.
I'm your host, Hunter March,
and determining which of these teams is
going home with $10,000 in their stocking
is our timeless panel of judges.
Ever the entrepreneur,
she makes her lists and checks them twice.
It's pastry chef Candace Nelson.
Celebrated Australian pastry chef,
and honestly the only thing
I need for Christmas,
it's Adriano Zumbo.
We're masters of the ticking timer here,
and we cannot wait for the holidays.
So today,
four teams of bakers are competing
in three
Christmas countdown themed rounds.
And finally, our guest judge,
two-time NBA champion
and Olympic gold medalist, Chris Bosh.
Candace and Adriano are
presenting the first two rounds
-of our Christmas countdown challenges...
-[bleeping]
...and that sound means
that competition has just begun.
Let's check it out.
Bakers, give yourselves
a round of Sant-applause, 'cause, uh...
it's gonna be a naughty competition today,
or a nice one.
Also, look at this outfit.
Cannot wait to surprise the...
[laughing]
You've gotta be kidding me.
What?
We're honoring you today, Hunter.
Obviously,
we're all dressed for the occasion.
Couldn't be more excited
for our guest, Chris Bosh.
-I'm just glad the pajamas fit, you know?
-[laughter]
-That usually doesn't happen.
-Yeah!
Candace, what are our bakers
working on in this first round?
Well, Hunter, no one knows how to prepare
for the big day quite like Santa Claus.
So, to thank him for all his hard work,
we want our bakers to not just
give him the usual milk and cookies,
but actually bake up
some sweet and salty cupcakes.
And we also want their decoration
to be Santa-themed.
If it can fuel Santa, it can fuel us
for an episode of Sugar Rush.
-Santa needs somethin' sweet and salty.
-Okay.
-Bourbon?
-Chocolate? Chocolate?
-You do the lime, I'll do the chocolate.
-Okay.
-Let's do it our style.
-Spices. Mexican chocolate.
-You wanna?
-I'll bake it.
-Sweet and salty like a nut, but...
-Not peanuts?
-Not peanuts.
-What else?
-[gasps] Pepitas.
-Pepitas,all right.
-This is elf Crystal.
-This is elf Stephanie.
And we both live in Oceanside,
California.
I own Something Sweet Cakes and Cookies.
I own Segura's Baking Co.
It's an online bakery.
I've been married to my husband
for five years,
and we have a six-week-old son.
I currently have pregnancy brain,
so we'll see how it ends up.
[Crystal] Hopefully, no more
than ten minutes, we'll get it in.
We should be fine,
as long as I don't burn my butter.
[Crystal] Don't burn your butter.
Kristen and I met about a year ago.
-[woman] Crystal.
-My name's Crystal.
-What did I say?
-Kristen.
-Kristen!
-[both laugh]
Stephanie and I actually met about a year
ago, and now we're cake besties.
We are.
I'll get these on the stove
in about one minute.
[Crystal] We are doing
a brown butter cupcake
with a citrus cranberry compote filling,
top it with
a faux Swiss meringue buttercream,
salted pepitas.
We're topping that with a perfect
little envelope
from a child to Santa,
his little Christmas letter.
[Crystal] These will fly all over.
Watch your eyes.
[Stephanie] This butter needs to brown.
Come on, butter. Oh, there we go.
Brown butter adds a rich, rustic taste.
The darker I brown my butter,
the more flavor it gives the cupcake.
[Crystal] You want sea salt
or kosher salt?
[Stephanie] Regular.
Our salty element is pepitas.
[Crystal] It's a shelled pumpkin seed.
[Crystal] Holy schnikes. A lot of salt.
They're almost done.
-[Stephanie] Hurry up.
-I know.
Man, these cupcakes are gonna be sweet!
-You know why?
-Why?
-'Cause they have sugar in them.
-[laughs]
My name is Jon.
I am from El Paso, Texas, and
I am the owner of Bella Cora Bakery.
And I'm Ana, and I'm the pastry chef
at Bella Cora Bakery.
He used to be my instructor,
he's my mentor, now he's my boss.
Buttermilk. Oh, you already got some.
-You shoulda told me that was there! You...
-I told you.
-You probably told me...
-I told you.
...and I probably wasn't listening.
For our cupcake... We're actually doing
two, because we're crazy like that.
We are doing one
that's gonna resemble a Santa hat,
and that one's gonna be
a lime cupcake with a mango filling,
lime buttercream
with Tajín sprinkled on top.
Tajín has chili powder, lime and salt.
-You're making the lime ones, right?
-Yeah.
For the other cupcake, we're doing
a chocolate cupcake
with a caramelized banana filling,
a vanilla buttercream, some salted toffee,
and then we are creating a truffle,
and it's gonna be wrapped
as if it was Santa's sack.
The mango's done?
Mango jam's done.
It's a good texture. It's nice and tangy.
Cupcakes in the oven.
You good, babe?
-Yeah.
-Yes.
-You rollin'?
-So far so good.
All right, let's roll.
My name is Inda, I'm from Hampton Roads,
Virginia, and I am a cake artist.
My name is Trey, I'm her husband.
-I work for the power company.
-We knew each other in high school.
-Then we connected again and got married.
-We've been married eight years.
Let's see if I can make
this little Santa face look pretty good.
[Inda] We are making a bourbon smoked
sea salt chocolate cupcake,
top it with bourbon smoked sea salt
chocolate buttercream,
and it's gonna have a fondant disc.
It's the big guy himself, Santa.
Santa will love it, trust me.[chuckles]
Babe, a little thick.
-[Trey] Too thick?
-[Inda] It's fine.
[Trey] I'll thin it out a bit.
About 14 years ago, I was diagnosed with
a neurological movement disorder
called dystonia.
I had to quit my job as a pharmacy tech,
so I started baking just to prove
to myself that I can still have a career
after the other one was taken from me.
-You're a champ, babe.
-So... Yeah.
I'mma go ahead and
get these hats shaped up nicely.
Goin' in the oven, babe.
-Are you doing the batter?
-Yes.
Okay. We love challenges,
so we can't complain, right?
My name is Ruth.
I'm from San Diego, California.
I'm owner and baker of Dulcet Confections.
My name is Anna,
and I'm a plant-based cake designer.
I want to prove that
veganism is actually on the rise.
About a year ago, we became vendor friends
at a bridal show that we did.
We just kinda clicked.
Okay, here's the Mexican chocolate.
[Ruth] We are making a vegan
Mexican chocolate cupcake.
It is filled with a salted
caramel coconut date filling,
layered with roasted salted almonds
and a Mexican chocolate buttercream,
topped with an upside-down Santa
made out of fondant,
to represent him
falling into the cupcake.
-What are you looking for?
-I'm about to melt the butter.
[Ruth] We don't use regular butter,
we use vegan butter.
And we're also substituting vegetable oil
instead of eggs
to make our cupcake moist.
[Anna] Are you doing the batter still?
-[Ruth] Yes, I really need to get this in.
-[Anna] I heard you, mamacita.
[Crystal] Smells so good.
[Stephanie] Oh, perfect.
[Crystal] What can I do?
Start helping me.
Aah! I broke it.
Dude, these are so cute.
We write letters to Santa every year,
and this is all I think about.
My hands are shaking, dude.
[Stephanie] Crystal, you need to hurry.
Focus.
-Focus, focus!
-[Crystal] I know, I know, I know, I know!
Adriano, you're makin' a sweet and salty
cupcake this round, what are you doing?
I'd probably do Vegemite, honey, and yuzu.
-Vegemite? Enough with the Vegemite!
-What is Vegemite?
Vegemite is literally known for being,
like, one of those things
-only Australians like.
-Okay.
In school, I'd eat it out of the jar
to build confidence to ring up girls
and ask 'em on dates.
-Wait. How did that give you confidence?
-'Cause it's so salty and intense...
-It's like doing a shot or something?
-[laughter]
Popeye's got spinach,
Adriano's got Vegemite.
[laughter]
[Jon] We're in good shape. I'll take those
chocolate cupcakes out in a second.
-[Ana] Okay.
-[Jon] Next, truffle shells.
For my cupcake, we've got banana filling,
I've got my truffle shells,
and I've got this big Santa's pack
that need to go on top.
Finishing those truffles
starts to make you question,
"Should I really have done all of this?"
I tell you what, we might have been
a little off on our time.
All right, toffee?
Salty-sweet, that's the thing.
[Ana] Salty-sweet. It'll work.
[Jon, high-pitched]
"That's a salty cupcake."
-[Crystal] All I hear is your voice, Jon!
-Right? You're so loud!
[yells] That's the type of guy I am!
Try and concentrate!
If we're lucky,
we'll hear my voice all day.
Can't even hear my own thoughts!
-[Candace] Oh!
-[Chris laughs] Oh, oh!
Yeah, I love the competition.
It's really startin' to get
my... juices flowin'.
[laughing]
No stranger to competition,
and no stranger to the show.
Your kids watch, right?
Yes, they love it. All of 'em love baking.
It's a huge deal. This is a big deal.
This is a big deal!
Would you say
biggest moment of your career?
-Absolutely, by far.
-[all laughing]
[Inda] So now, let's get some icing going.
-Smells so good!
-Gracious.
[Inda] This is bourbon smoked sea salt.
We want them to taste the salt.
We were thinkin' about givin' Santa
somethin' that he will like
after a long night,
so it's infused with bourbon.
Man, it smells kinda strong, huh?
Tell me if it's too much bourbon.
Wow.
I definitely don't wanna
get Santa too drunk.
He still has to deliver toys for the kids.
-Got a nice little kick to it.
-Okay, good. Good.
Do these look good to you?
[Ruth] Too big. You wanna make 'em small.
The two salty ingredients that we have
are salted roasted almonds
and salted caramel sauce.
♪ Let's go, caramel, cup on the side ♪
-[Ruth] Don't forget the salt.
-Yeah. Girl, I got you.
-[Ruth] Okay.
-[Anna] I got you.
-[Ruth] I'll start on the little Santa.
-[Anna] Okay.
Some Santa legs will be
like he worked out,
others are like he had too many cookies.
[Anna laughs] That's fine.
[Ruth] How are the cupcakes?
[Anna] Oh, these are really small.
-They're kinda hard to, like, stand.
-[Ruth] We're gonna have to make it work.
We don't have time to redo the cupcakes.
[Anna] It's gonna work.
It's gonna have to work.
There goes the filling.
[Stephanie] You need to make the bows.
-[Ana] You want the banana filling inside?
-[Jon] Yup.
How's it lookin'?
-[Jon] Santa's comin' together.
-[Ana] Aww. Santa's cute.
[Ruth] How many more do I do?
-[Anna] Legs?
-[Ruth] Shoes.
-[Anna] Pairs?
-[Ruth] Shoes.
Okay, we might be the first.
Don't push 'em too hard. Are we good?
I think we're done.
-[bells jingle]
-Inda and Trey done!
Let's head on down
and, uh, try our first cupcake.
Holy crap, Trey and Inda are done.
Hi, Inda, hi, Trey.
-[Trey] Hey.
-[Inda] Hi.
[Hunter] Why don't you pass out your
cupcakes and tell us what you made?
Here we have our sleeping Santa.
Our cake is a Dutch chocolate cake.
It's infused with bourbon,
and our salty aspect
is bourbon-smoked sea salt.
Do we have to eat it with a fork?
-No.
-No, no. You can do it by hand.
[Inda] Eat it how you want.
-[Trey laughs]
-The cake is great, it's not too sweet.
I love the add of salt,
and that touch of bourbon in the back
makes you feel,
like, you know, "All right."
-All right.
-[Trey] Comatose?
"Tonight, it's a nice party."
-Thanks, Chris. Thank you.
-Thank you so much.
I like the simple decoration.
It's nice and thin, but effective.
I love chocolate and bourbon and
that smoky sea salt. It's a great combo.
Well, this is a very jolly Santa Claus.
He looks like he just enjoyed
a few of these cupcakes.
-Yes.
-You noticed.
It has such a tender crumb,
so soft and delicious.
It was really well balanced.
-Thank you.
-Thank you. Appreciate y'all.
Adriano, remind them
what they have to do in round two.
We want a confection
inspired by reindeer food.
It includes corn cereal, M&M's,
-pretzels, nuts, chocolate...
-Gotcha.
-You know, those kind of things.
-Yeah. Okay.
[Ruth] You wanna just be really careful.
[Anna] Stay, Santa. Stay.
-Ready? One, two, three.
-Ready? And, go!
-[bells jingle]
-[Hunter] Oh!
Looks like Anna and Ruth are done.
-Good luck. Have fun.
-Yes. Thank you so much.
-Pretzels, M&M's...
-How will we do it? Like a verrine?
-That's... Okay.
-Like...
-How's it going?
-Good, how are you?
Pass out your cupcakes,
tell us what you made.
[Ruth] We have upside-down Santa,
fell off his sleigh and
onto a Mexican chocolate cupcake
topped with
a Mexican chocolate buttercream.
The filling is salted caramel coconut date
with salted almonds.
[Anna] It is plant-based,
so it's totally vegan.
I have to say, I see why Santa fell in.
-[laughing]
-I have never had a vegan cupcake.
-So, thank you.
-Oh, good.
The crushed almonds
was really, really a nice flavor,
-and the natural sweetness...
-Yeah.
...that you guys are doin'.
-Yeah.
-It was really good
-and very festive for Christmas.
-Great.
Loved your vegan caramel in the middle.
I think my only note would just be
I would've loved a little bit more
of a hit on the salty notes.
-Oh, okay.
-Because with the caramel,
the frosting and the cupcake,
there was a lot of sweet,
a little light on the salty.
-[Anna] Okay. All righty.
-Okay.
I also didn't get enough salt and I wanted
the cupcake to be slightly bigger.
-Know what I mean?
-[Anna] Yeah.
With plant-based stuff, you gotta put
more batter in 'cause it doesn't have...
-A lot of rising.
-[Adriano] Yeah.
-A bit more volume.
-Yeah.
But I think it's our first
plant-based cupcake on the show.
-Cool.
-You guys have an hour 45 remaining.
How do you feel on time?
-We...
-We're good, we got this.
Get goin'! Good luck, bakers.
-Thank you.
-Thank you so much, appreciate it.
-Pretzel, the chocolate...
-Yeah.
And oatmeal, reindeers like oatmeal.
[Stephanie] We're the last two.
[Crystal] It's down to us, guys.
It's down to us.
-Did you taste the filling?
-[Stephanie] I trust you.
Yeah! This is taking me back to Mexico.
This is where the Mexican power comes in.
I hope the judges
don't think this is too spicy.
-Beautiful, Ana. Love it.
-[Ana] Thank you.
-That it? You got 'em all?
-[Stephanie] Press the buzzer!
-Go!
-All right.
-Whoo!
-[bells jingle]
Crystal and Stephanie just buzzed in.
Judges, let's head on down.
Hello.
Crystal, Stephanie.
-[Candace] Hello, ladies.
-[all] Hi.
-How are you guys?
-Great, how are you?
Why don't you pass out your cupcakes
and tell us what you made?
We made a brown butter cupcake.
It's filled with
a cranberry citrus compote,
and it's topped off with a faux Swiss
meringue and salted pepitas,
which are pumpkin seeds.
Oh, that's perfect.
-[Crystal] Oh, my God.
-[laughter]
We are ready to finish.
In case it's our only buzzer,
I want you to do it.
-[both laugh]
-Ay!
-[Ana] Ready?
-[Trey] Okay.
-[bells jingle]
-Gotta do it.
Oh, another team is done.
Jon and Ana, we'll get there in a second.
Chris, let's start with you.
Between the cranberry and the butter,
it's nice and light and not too sweet.
It's really good.
Your cupcake was so festive
for the holidays.
Your note from Santa was really fun.
I also wanna say, I love that your
wreath decoration was all edible.
That cupcake was super soft and buttery.
That tartness from the cranberry
in the middle
really brought
a lot of joy to eating the middle of it.
It was awesome.
Adriano, remind them
what they're doing in round two.
We wanna see a confection
that's inspired by reindeer treats.
If anyone can do it, it's elves.
We know what they like.
[laughter]
Bakers, we'll see you in a little bit.
We should go over the top
and do ice cream.
-Like...
-You wanna do ice cream?
-[Hunter] Hello.
-[Candace] Hi.
Talk us through your cupcakes.
[Trey] All right, so we have
a mango-lime-Tajín cupcake
and that was Ana's idea,
coming from Mexico,
and mine is a chocolate cupcake
with rum-banana filling,
golden toffee and truffle
covered with marzipan
-made to look like Santa's pack.
-Very ambitious of you
to do not just two cupcakes, but then also
all of these other edible adornments.
I thought the flavors
of your mango cupcake
-were really successful.
-[Trey] Awesome.
Working with that Tajín
was a really clever way to go.
Thank you.
But on your chocolate cupcake scale-wise,
Santa's bag was definitely bulky.
The texture of the frosting was delicious.
I wanted more punch in the salt.
And the mango and lime cupcake,
I love the Tajín on top.
It's a great saltiness and a bit of spice.
-A beautiful cupcake.
-Thank you. Awesome.
Chocolate and rum is really good.
I will say more of the saltiness
would've been a nice flavor.
In this one, you get a lot of Tajín
in the initial bite
but then you eventually work your way
to the fruity center.
This was an adventure right here.
-In a good way.
-Thank you.
-You have an hour 28 remaining.
-We will do our best.
Good luck, bakers. See you in a bit.
-Judges, we have a decision to make.
-[all] Thanks.
Let's head to the judges' table.
We wanna make, like... like a...
like, a mousse.
-We're good at that.
-Sure.
Judges.
Four cupcakes down, but only three
can make it to the confection round.
Let's start with
who had our favorite cupcakes.
For overall presentation and flavor,
I'm gonna have to give to Inda and Trey.
Their Santa Claus was really fun
but also thin enough to be edible,
and the smokiness,
the bourbon, the chocolate,
they were all working together
really harmoniously.
They really hit that salt note,
really well.
The cake was very, very light and fluffy.
And then just that nice smoked salt
was really, really cool.
So, you know, the sweet and salty balance
was really good.
-Who had your other favorite?
-As far as originality,
I'll go with Crystal and Stephanie.
I've never had pepitas
on a cupcake before.
Crystal and Stephanie brought us
a cupcake a bit different.
I really loved the butteriness of it.
That little cranberry jam in the middle
was really delicious when you ate it.
The richness
of that brown-butter cupcake...
The pepitacrunch
added that nice saltiness,
and their wreath was all edible.
It was just amazing.
It sounds like we're all in agreement
about our top two favorites for the round.
So why are Ruth and Anna, and Jon and Ana
in your bottom two cupcakes?
Ruth and Anna gave us
a great plant-based cupcake,
but for me it was missing in volume
and missing in the salt.
They delivered a really nice vegan cupcake
but it just was very sweet to me.
They missed the salt part
-of the sweet and salty challenge.
-I will agree. Not enough salt.
The cupcake kind of fell apart
a little bit.
And as far as the presentation,
I think they did kind of
fall a little short there.
Jon and Ana
had a problem to me with scale.
Their decorations were a fun idea,
but it just was so bulky, it overpowered
the entire presentation of the cupcake.
I love the ambitious nature
that they attacked it with.
But if they probably would have
focused on the lime cupcake,
we'd be having a different conversation
right now,
because that was salt and sweet.
They did such a great job.
He must have done 15 different components
for those two cupcakes,
which takes you out of the game a bit.
I was missing the salt on one of them.
I thought the other was delicious.
Mixed emotions there.
Okay, judges, it sounds like
you have come to a decision.
I will go and let our bakers know.
Bakers, can I have your attention, please?
Our judges have made their first decision.
And the team
with their favorite cupcake is...
Crystal and Stephanie.
Congratulations. You have won the round
with the favorite cupcake.
You're safe from elimination.
And because we're in the Christmas spirit,
we wanna give you each
a brand new espresso maker
-to put a pep in your step.
-Really?
[Stephanie] Thank you!
Unfortunately, that means
that one of the remaining three teams
will be going home right now.
And the team with our judges'
least favorite cupcake this round is...
Ruth and Anna.
Okay.
We're so sorry.
Your guys' flavors were incredible,
you impressed us
with your plant-based cupcake,
there just wasn't enough salt
-in the sweet and salty challenge.
-Sorry.
[Hunter] Your time in the Sugar Rush
kitchen has run out.
Doing this competition took me
completely out of my comfort zone,
but I had a great experience.
We're still gonna stay positive,
and we'll be coming out winners.
[Hunter] Great job.
-Love, love, love.
-Bye.
I'm still gonna continue on
making these beautiful vegan cakes.
I'll keep pushing forward.
This is not holding me back.
I'm gonna cry, so...
All right, bakers,
you have one hour, six minutes left.
Keep going on those confections.
You know what, white chocolate chips,
but I think as far as tempering,
-this is probably better.
-Okay. Work the crust first.
For our reindeer confections,
we're making a reindeer food verrine.
We're going to have a pretzel crust
with cookie butter cheesecake filling,
and it's gonna be topped
with crumbles of Biscoff cookies
and chocolate bark.
Oh, it smells good.
I have to work on a cheesecake
to set in time
while Trey works on the bark.
[Trey] Gotta get this, uh...
chocolate tempered right.
Trey, go ahead and spread it out.
Not too thin, baby.
[Trey] It's gonna consist
of white chocolate,
pretzels, M&M's and Chex Mix.
-[Inda] Hurry, put it in the fridge!
-You're like a drill sergeant.
We don't wanna fall behind.
[Crystal] I am working on a custard
to start the ice cream.
[Stephanie] Get it hot fast, Crystal.
[Crystal] I'm tryin'. I'm tryin'.
For our confection round,
we are making a baked North Pole
in the shape of a carrot.
It's basically a baked Alaska, but...
-We're from the North Pole.
-Yeah.
[Crystal] The bottom layer
is a vanilla malt spongecake
with a vanilla bean ice cream,
mixed in with our reindeer food,
and everything will be covered
with a fire-toasted Italian meringue.
[Crystal] Smells so good!
I love making baked Alaskas.
I mean, it can't get better
than cake and ice cream.
-[Jon] You good?
-[Ana] Mm.
[Jon] I believe in you.
All right. I'll start peeling apples
over here.
[Jon] In El Paso,
kids like to make reindeer chow,
and it's like oats and sprinkles
that they throw outside.
But then there's also things
literal reindeer would eat, like apples.
We're wanting to make something whimsical
that incorporates
a little of all of that into it.
-[Jon] Oh, start the caramelized cinnamon.
-[Ana] Yeah, I'm scaling it.
For our reindeer confection, we are going
to make a cinnamon oat streusel base
with a caramelized cinnamon mousse,
a filling of apples and cranberry.
On the sides, we're gonna make
caramelized Rice Krispies.
[Jon] Pour, pour, pour, pour, pour... stop.
[sighing] Oh, man. That clock.
-Whew!
-[Jon] Moment of truth is coming, Ana.
[Inda] Oh, my goodness,
this smells so good.
All right. Let's check your bark.
We're almost done with our confection,
and I'm feeling good about it.
Uh-oh. I think we might have
had it in there a little bit too long.
I realize that the reindeer food is not
sticking to the chocolate bark.
This only has pretzels. Somebody's
gonna be like, "I didn't get a..."
-"Where's my M&M?"
Yeah.
Making more chocolate
would just set us back.
Get the ones that have the pretzels
already inside the chocolate, okay?
We can just throw
an M&M in there and on top.
It's good, it's good, it's good.
-Ready?
-Yeah.
-[bells jingle]
-[Hunter] Inda and Trey!
First team to buzz in yet again.
-Judges, let's try our first confection.
-Man.
-My God, they're done already?
-I know.
Holy moly.
-Hi, Inda, hi, Trey.
-[Inda] Hi.
-How are you?
-How you doin'? I'm fantastic.
First ones done yet again.
Pass out your confection
and tell us about your reindeer food.
[Inda] We have for you
reindeer food verrines,
pretzel crust on the bottom,
a cookie butter no-bake cheesecake,
and then we have Biscoff crumbles
and chocolate bark on top.
Well, you definitely got all the flavors
of reindeer food in there
and you got the sweet and the salty
and the crunchy and the creamy.
Thought it was a really clever spin
to do the cookie butter.
My only note would be that the consistency
of the cheesecake itself
-was a bit gooey, almost.
-Okay.
-It wasn't quite the creamy consistency...
-Yeah.
-...I was looking for.
-Yeah.
-I got you. All right.
-Okay. Thanks.
[Adriano] You definitely packed a lot in,
a lot of flavor in all those cookie notes.
The only thing I would say is I wanted
more salt. Other than that, well done.
Love the cookie butter,
but you guys could've definitely
used more of the pretzels
-to kind of balance out that gooeyness.
-Right.
But I'm definitely going to be making
reindeer treats
-with my kids now, for sure.
-That's right, Chris.
-All right.
-Bakers, you banked quite a bit of time.
I assume this is part of your strategy?
-Yes. Every minute counts.
-Definitely.
-Great. Good luck. See you in a while.
-Thank you!
-Thanks. Thanks a lot.
-[Inda] Thank you.
How do you feel about that?
-It went well.
-Good. Yeah, yeah.
-Get ready for nitrogen.
-Yep.
So I'm in charge of the ice cream.
The ears were not a great idea.
I've never worked
with liquid nitrogen before.
I can't see anything!
I really feel like a mad elf scientist.
It's getting there. All right, stop.
[Crystal] Oh, it looks so good.
[Stephanie] Oh, perfect.
[Crystal] I'mma trust you.
-Is it good?
-Yeah, it's really good.
I have the white chocolate ready,
and streusel is done.
This is the most high-pressure
baking situation I've ever been in.
-You're scaling the Rice Krispies?
-Rice Krispies.
It's a lot of elements to one dessert.
And the most important element
is the caramelized Rice Krispies.
Rice Krispie treats in here.
You boil up a sugar syrup,
dump in Rice Krispies and start stirring.
Slowly what happens is
the temperature goes higher and higher,
until finally
that sugar starts to caramelize.
[Jon] It smells like Christmas!
It's not burning, I promise.
[Jon] These are the most fantastic things
any human has ever put in their mouths.
We are confident
that if we can get that to the judges,
it's gonna blow their minds.
-Something smells burnt.
-Huh?
[sniffs]
[Stephanie] Oh, he's got...
Smells like burning. Did you burn it?
-[Jon] Uhh... Ana.
-[Ana] What?
[Jon laughs]
Scale 'em again, 'cause I burned 'em.
I burned the Rice Krispies.
We need to make them again.
[scoffs]
I hope this doesn't set us back
a lot of time.
Not gonna take long, don't worry.
[Crystal] Chop up some peppermint
to give it, like, a little bit of mint.
Inside vanilla bean ice cream, we're also
going to be mixing in reindeer food.
[Crystal] Forget anything? Peppermint?
M&M's? Almonds? Chocolate?
Nope. I'll start plating.
-You can tort.
-Yeah!
[Ana] This'll make the plate
a little bit more festive.
[Jon] Cool beans.
I didn't burn 'em that time.
-[Crystal] Okay, run.
-[Stephanie] You got it.
-You got it. Yeah. Go. Run, run, run!
-I'm doing it?
-Ooh!
-[bells jingle]
All right, Crystal and Stephanie done.
Judges,
let's go try our second confection.
Okay, Crystal and Stephanie.
These are incredible looking.
[Crystal] Thank you.
Why don't you pass them out
and tell us about
your reindeer food-inspired confection?
We did a malted vanilla cake.
The ice cream is a vanilla bean
with reindeer food.
Then we topped it off
with Italian meringue and we torched it.
[Crystal] And the stems
is, uh, wafer paper.
I'm gonna start filling.
[Jon] Nice.
-[Ana] You hit the buzzer this time.
-Yay!
[bells jingle]
-Oh! Jon and Ana, done.
-Ooh!
We'll get there in a second. Candace,
thoughts for Crystal and Stephanie?
What an inventive ice-cream cake.
Making it look like a carrot to feed
the reindeer was just such a clever idea.
And all the different textures,
and temperatures, and flavors in there,
-it was a delicious mouthful.
-Thank you.
-Yay.
-Look, reindeer'll be lining up for this.
-[laughs]
-The only thing I'd say is,
a bit less peppermint.
-Amazing presentation. Well done.
-Thanks.
-Thank you.
-[Hunter] Chris.
You guys blew me away with the creativity
and puttin' the crunch, saltiness
and the sweet in there, it was excellent.
-Thank you.
-Thanks very much.
You banked 26 minutes and 33 seconds,
-How do you feel about time?
-Okay. It's gonna be okay.
-We got it! We got this.
-We finished!
-[laughter]
-Jon and Ana buzzed in, so, judges,
let's turn right around and try our third
and final confection.
-Thank you, bakers.
-[both] Thanks.
Okay, Jon and Ana, how's it goin'?
-Hey, we made it.
-[Hunter] You did.
-[Candace] Yes, you did.
-[Hunter] Tell us what you made.
[Ana] On the bottom,
it's an oatmeal streusel,
caramelized cinnamon mousse,
and then in the middle,
you have apples and cranberries,
and then
caramelized Rice Krispies on the side.
[Hunter] We were wondering how
you would do just one dessert.
-It's by putting four desserts into one.
-[laughing]
-Ah! Nah, nah, nah, nah.
-Yeah.
Chris, what are your thoughts?
Putting the holiday flavors in there
with the apple, cinnamon and cranberry,
keepin' it festive, it's great.
You packed in the reindeer treats.
These crispy things on the outside,
they're so crunchy, delicious,
-I could sit and eat them by the bagful.
-Yeah.
[Candace] Well, this presentation
is so whimsical,
and yet still so precise and flawless.
The lushness of this mousse
was great against the crunchiness
of that oatmeal streusel.
It came together beautifully. Well done.
You were the last ones done,
but you still banked
24 minutes and 13 seconds.
-How do you feel about that time?
-It's the time we have,
-so I feel very positive.
-Yeah!
[all laughing]
We have a decision to make, judges.
Let's head back to the judges' table.
-Thank you.
-[Hunter] Thanks, bakers.
[Ana] Whew!
I was trying to high-five you, dork.
-What...
-[laughing]
Okay, so only two teams
can make it to the final cake round.
Unfortunately,
we need to eliminate someone right now.
Before we do that,
who had your favorite confection?
Jon and Ana brought such delicious flavors
with those warm spices in their mousse,
as well as that delicious apple-y inside.
And the adorable reindeer prints on top.
It was really memorable for me.
Sort of warm, cinnamon flavor
reminded me of cinnamon cereal.
It had those crispy Rice Krispie treat
things on the outside, it was delicious.
It was really creative,
but most importantly, really good.
They're on fire right now.
Now that we know who our favorite is,
it's time to eliminate someone.
I think Inda and Trey played
that strategy game today,
to play it simple, bank a lot of time.
And they put up
a really delicious dessert.
I mean, that cookie butter cheesecake
was yummy.
They did rise to the challenge in terms
of bringing the reindeer food flavor.
But I would've liked to have seen
a little more finesse.
I think it was a bit simple, but overall,
they did pack in a lot of reindeer treats,
it added a lot of crunch.
The idea was there,
it was just maybe a little rushed.
Crystal and Stephanie
gave us such a playful presentation.
I love how they incorporated
the malt flavor into the cake
and the inclusions into their ice cream.
Putting the peppermint ice cream
inside of the carrot,
that was just really
a festive holiday twist.
They had the best texture, but in the end,
it all just tasted like peppermint to me.
There was too much of it.
I'm freaking out a little bit,
but I think it'll be okay.
-We wait and see what the judges feel.
-[Inda] Yes.
Judges, it seems like
you have made a decision.
I will go ahead and let our bakers know.
Okay, bakers. Our judges have made
their second decision.
And before we make an elimination,
the team with their favorite confection
today is...
Jon and Ana.
Very well done, bakers.
You are safe from elimination.
And since it's Christmas,
we're gifting you both
brand new dehydrators.
-You can do tasty reindeer jerky all year.
-Yeah!
-Yes! Reindeer jerky, wow.
-That's awesome.
-[Ana laughs]
-[Jon] We were just feeding them,
-and now we're eating them.
-[laughing]
Unfortunately, that means that
one of our two remaining teams,
Crystal and Stephanie, Inda and Trey,
one of you has to go home.
And the team with our judges'
least favorite confection this round is...
-Trey and Inda. We're so sorry.
-Aww. All right.
But your time in the Sugar Rushkitchen
has run out.
-[Inda] Aw, thank you so much.
-[Trey] Thank you.
When I started baking out of necessity,
I would've never imagined
that I would've come
all the way here to Sugar Rush.
-Thank you.
-[Hunter] You guys did so good.
I'm so happy to have my husband here
going through this journey with me, and...
it's been, like, one of
the greatest experiences of my life.
I'm proud of you, babe.
[Trey] Sugar Take Your Time.
That's what it should be called.
Not Sugar Rush!
-Yeah, Sugar Take Your Time.
-[both laughing]
Congratulations, Ana and Jon,
Crystal and Stephanie,
you are moving on to the final cake round.
We need you to use your time
to make us an Advent calendar cake.
The cake must be
a functional Advent calendar,
where we can open
a numbered section and find a surprise.
At least four sections of your cake
need to open so our judges can see inside.
Ana and Jon, you banked
24 minutes and 13 seconds.
We're gonna add three hours to that,
giving you a total of three hours,
24 minutes and 13 seconds.
Crystal and Stephanie,
you banked 26 minutes and 33 seconds.
We'll add three hours to that,
giving you a total
of three hours, 26 minutes and 33 seconds.
And because you banked more time,
you'll be starting first.
-Crystal and Stephanie, are you ready?
-[both] We're ready.
-Your time starts in three, two, one.
-[bleeping]
Good luck, bakers.
-All right.
-All right.
Jon and Ana, hang out for a minute.
Advent calendar, I'm thinking ornaments.
Circular, we can put something inside.
For our design, we're doing a 3D tree
with little gingerbread men, bows...
[Crystal] A little wafer paper
note to Santa...
[Stephanie] And ornaments,
and inside of them are gonna be treats.
The judges pull out a treat
and see if they've been naughty or nice.
-Coal for naughty?
-Yeah.
-What should we do for nice?
-Um, like, a bonbon?
We are deciding to do a Black Forest cake,
which is a rich chocolate cake
with a diplomat cream filling
and a brandied cherry compote filling.
We're going to cover it
with a faux Swiss meringue buttercream
and some chocolate ganache
with some fondant accents,
and finish it all off
with some buttercream rosettes.
[Crystal] All the alcohol.
Whew! That brandy is strong.
[Hunter] Ana and Jon, your time starts in
-three, two, one.
-[bleeping]
Okay.
-Big rectangle. We need something tall.
-We can do that.
-It's Christmas... that's a tree.
-Oh. Tree?
I can make it out of meringue.
-I can stack it up...
-Do it. I love it.
[Jon] For our Advent calendar cake,
we are going to make a mousse cake.
We're gonna cover it in chocolate plaques
that are numbered.
We're planning on having one distinct tree
that represents each day of the month,
and on the top, a meringue tree.
For the judges, we plan on making
little chocolate cubes
that look like presents
that they can smash their way into.
-What are you doing, what am I?
-I'll start with cakes.
-Okay.
-Let's do it.
[Jon] We are going to make a mousse cake
with bittersweet chocolate mousse,
three layers of devil's food cake,
raspberry jam,
and then
a chocolate hazelnut crispy layer.
We wanna really just try to be
completely different
than anything that any other contestant
has ever done on Sugar Rush.
Mixer's on.
Jon's gonna be more in charge
of actually building the cake,
while I'm gonna be more in charge of doing
the things that go on top to decorate.
[Jon] The batter looks amazing.
-They're all ready to go.
-[Ana] Oven?
[groans]
[sniffles] Aah!
-I have to dump it.
-What happened?
I accidentally mixed up the baking powder
-and the baking soda.
-[laughs]
I am having mommy brain.
Now that I have to redo my cake batter,
I basically lost 15 minutes.
I'm sorry.
If it's going to happen,
I'd rather it happen now.
[Stephanie] We're going up against
Jon and Ana.
I feel we've been neck and neck
this whole competition.
I'm a little nervous, but I really think
the competition between our two teams
-will really push us both to do our best.
-[Stephanie] Yeah.
This is a bad idea!
For the meringue decorations,
I have to make
a big batch of Italian meringue,
then I'm gonna divide that meringue
and color it different colors.
All right, I'm just gonna start a pipe.
This meringue's...
I'm gonna try to go as fast as I can.
[Jon] As soon as the cakes come out,
we wanna get our meringues
into the oven and drying out.
Because if they're not dried,
then it's just gonna be a big, goopy mess.
You okay, Ana?
[Ana] Piping, piping meringues.
We're making a treat for each day.
[Jon] Maybe it's a meringue lollipop
or a sugar cookie or pecan puffs.
Something that represents
each day of the month.
Oh, my God!
[Crystal] These are gonna be
for the ornaments.
It's called "Crystal makes a giant mess."
We want to make shells for the ornaments,
so what I've decided to do
is take circle molds
and fill them to the top
with our melted red chocolate,
and then dump the rest out
and give it a little shake.
Come on. Whoo, Nelly!
So I can then scrape the top off,
get those in the blast freezer,
and they're gonna harden up
to, like, a perfect shell
for each of our ornaments
to hold a little tree.
[Jon] This is the most important bavarois
I've ever made in my life.
I've never used a smaller spatula.
[Jon] I have to make a mousse,
which is... we call it a bavarois.
It's going to provide
a lot of flavor and texture.
And then, once I've got everything made,
I can start putting it all on my frame
and layering it up.
-[Jon] Buildin' the frame for the cake.
-[Ana] Okay.
We have these cool plexiglass bars.
[Jon] We have a really unique process
for building cakes.
I can assemble a frame
out of plexiglass bars
and glue them together with chocolate.
It'll be able to give us enough height
on our cake to fit all the elements in.
Like cake architects.
[Jon] You made
a serious amount of crisp here.
[Ana] The mousse,
that's gonna make a thicker layer
than the crispy layer in there
and the raspberry jam.
I feel like Jon is, like,
this mad scientist man over there.
Hell, yeah. It's a mousse cake, right?
Those cakes move a lot more.
So it'll be interesting
to see how they go, you know?
I think the surprise, the finishing...
-There's a lot to do.
-Right.
These are both very...
You can tell, very ambitious projects.
Might've been a little much on the mousse
on the first go. That's way too much.
[Jon] Technical precision is very
important to assemble a cake like this,
getting really even layers that you can
see are exactly a certain thickness.
[Crystal] That one's done.
Yup. These are done.
I'll start stacking.
Just tell me if I'm doing it wrong.
[Crystal] As I start stacking
some of the layers of the cake,
I'm using rice cereal and then buttercream
to hold everything together,
so once we get our buttercream
on there, nothing's gonna fall apart.
All right, bakers,
you have two hours left.
-[Stephanie] Do the structure this hour.
-Okay. Okay.
-[Stephanie] Then focus on decorations.
-[Crystal] Okay.
[Stephanie] I'm on my last layer.
All right, I'm gonna start carving.
[Ana] All right, Jon. What is left to do?
Make peanut brittle,
chocolate cubes, fill the cubes,
deco cubes, white chocolate flags,
glaze the top of the cake,
assemble the... Christmas tree,
-and put all the stuff on top.
-Okay.
[Jon] And win the contest.
Yeah.
[Ana] This Advent calendar cake needs
to be functional, not just for show.
So we are creating
sealed boxes of chocolate
for them to break them up.
Hopefully, they'll have fun.
[high-pitched] Peanut brittle's done!
[Ana] We're gonna put peanut brittle in,
and some other mixed surprises in there.
It's a lot of elements to one dessert.
It's the most stressful time of the year.
[laughs]
-[Jon] What have you got for me, cookies?
-[Ana] Cookies? Okay. Coming.
[Hunter] All right, bakers,
you have 45 minutes left.
-[Jon] Thank you.
-You're welcome.
[Crystal] I buy my girls
little Advent calendars every year.
The ornaments remind me
of the little doors,
so we are doing
fondant numbers on the front
and little tiny chocolate doorknobs for
the judges to pull them off of the cake.
The judges don't know, but the evens
are nice and the odds are naughty.
[Crystal] Make extra for me.
[Stephanie] For the nice element,
we're making chocolate bonbons,
and then for our naughty element...
-Like that?
-[Crystal] Yeah, rough and rustic.
...we're making our lumps of coal
out of Oreos, marshmallows, and butter.
[Crystal] Please be careful.
[Jon] I am making white chocolate plaques.
I painted a sheet of plastic
with cocoa butter.
Then I have to temper
some white chocolate, spread it over,
let it set a little bit, and then
cut it with this cool contraption.
[Jon] On the sides, we're gonna
cover the cake in chocolate tiles
that are numbered
all the way up to day 20.
They're a very big element
of the theme of the Advent calendar.
So, I know that
we've just gotta get it done.
Jon and Ana, cutting the tape
that's holding the plexiglass together?
The moment we've all been waiting for.
-[Adriano] Hey!
-[Hunter] It's off.
-And five layers aren't spilling out now!
-Seeping out?
[Jon] Soon as I get these on, we begin...
[Ana] To put everything on top.
Sugar, to make it snow.
All right. It snowed on the cake.
[whirring]
[splutters]
[Stephanie] Right now, I'm trying
to put these treats in the chocolate shell
and pop them on the cake.
Crystal, I need your help.
-[Stephanie] Rosettes first.
-[Crystal] They gotta go first.
[Stephanie] They're not sticking.
[Crystal] I'm using the buttercream
as a glue to hold everything together.
I have never piped
buttercream rosettes so fast.
My hands are hurting so bad,
they're starting to cramp.
[Crystal] Get the numbers.
We'll worry about everything else after.
Bakers, you have 20 minutes left.
[Jon] Twenty minutes.
I didn't forget any numbers.
Nailed it.
Are we allowed to say "nailed it"?
I'll take the meringues out.
We can start assembling, right?
I am not calm at this point.
We still have to put everything
on top of the cake,
we have to build the meringue cake,
bring all the cookies,
we have to put 'em on top of the cake.
[Ana squeals] I just broke one.
I'm gonna try to not freak out
and try to glue this together.
[Jon] I think it looks like a star.
It's yellow and kind of pointy shaped.
Must be a star.
-Okay, don't touch it.
-[Ana] Okay.
-Don't touch it.
-[laughs]
All right, bakers,
you have ten minutes left.
[Jon] Ten minutes!
I like that Jon repeats
the things that I say.
It makes me feel like a head chef.
He's your sous chef.
Aaah! I'm goin' crazy.
Time is starting to really run out,
and we need to get all of the details
we possibly can onto the cake.
Make it look nice.
The back of this cake is kinda plain.
So I decide to texture the cake.
It's like it's in a forest.
[Crystal] I am making as many
little fondant bows as I can.
-What else? Make a fondant star.
-[Stephanie] Okay.
[Crystal] We're trying to get
as much decor on there as we can,
so we add our little note from our child
and a little Santa envelope
to bring in from round one.
-It's so cute.
-Yeah.
-[sighs] Almost lost an ear.
-[Hunter] Thirty seconds!
[Ana] So cute.
-[judges] Three, two, one.
-[Hunter] Stop touching the cake!
Everyone, hands up.
Judges, let's head on down to the cakes.
Okay, Crystal and Stephanie.
-Judges, are you ready to see...
-[both] Hi, guys.
-Oooh!
-...a very, very adorable
-Advent calendar cake?
-That looks great.
-What does it say?
-[Candace and Adriano] "I've been good."
Wow. We know
Candace didn't write that. Okay.
-[laughter]
-Ohh!
Okay. Crystal, Stephanie,
please walk us through your cake.
I have two daughters,
and we do this every year.
-Not this grand, this is upscale.
-[laughter]
[Crystal] But we went ahead
and we did a Christmas tree,
and we did some chocolate ornaments
on the front, and those can be removed
-to reveal your treat inside.
-Ooh!
Some are naughty, and some are nice.
Judges, what do you think
about the design of the cake?
-Chris?
-It's super cool.
[laughter]
I mean, I didn't know what to expect.
We only saw the back, and I saw you guys
really, really working. It's very cool.
I like the piping work on the front,
the little ornaments. It's a great job.
[both] Thank you.
It was so much fun to see this reveal,
because the cake
is pretty simple in the back,
but it's all party in front.
Thank you.
-Chris, whatever one you want.
-All right.
This one's speakin' to me.
Pull the whole thing. Okay.
-Is that a lump of coal? Oh, man.
-[Crystal] It is a lump of coal!
-So...
-Can I eat it?
-You absolutely can.
-Yeah, you can.
This is what I do with lumps of coal.
[growls]
[Candace laughing]
[Crystal] Did you get coal?
-I got the same.
-[Crystal] You did!
-He got coal as well.
-[Stephanie] No!
-[Crystal] Oh, no!
-Not trending in your favor, Candace.
-I know, we're going on a slope here.
-[Candace] Ohh...
[gasps]
-I got a present!
-[Adriano] Oh!
-[Crystal] Yay! Candace has been nice.
-Oh, my gosh, what a treat.
Thank you, ladies, thank you, Santa.
I guess I've been good this year.
Okay, I'm picking number 12.
-[Crystal] What did you get?
-You can guess what I got!
-[Adriano] Well, isn't that special?
-[Crystal] Yay, good.
The pulling of the Advent calendar
was a big part of the challenge.
How did our bakers do?
When I can walk up to a cake
and just be surprised and delighted,
that's my favorite thing.
And you did that today.
-Thank you very much.
-Yes.
Well done, bakers.
The only thing left to do
is to cut us four slices
of your Advent calendar cake.
See you at the judges' table.
-Absolutely, thank you.
-Thank you.
And, judges, we're turning
right around to Jon and Ana.
They're so cute.
-[Hunter] Jon and Ana.
-[Ana] Hey. Hello.
-What an incredible Advent calendar cake.
-[Jon] Thank you.
[Ana] So, we tried to make
a treat for every day.
Everything on top, it's edible.
We have four boxes that you can take off
and break off with your mini rolling pins.
I don't wanna tell you what it is,
I want you to discover it.
I love how you took
a more pâtisserie-style cake
and made it into a grand scale.
I love what you've done
with your meringues,
making them into the lollipops,
building them into a Christmas tree
that's your focal point.
It feels almost like
Candy Land meets Christmas.
I really like the visual.
You've really packed it full of color.
You went for a pâtisserie-style cake
which is fun, we don't see a lot of that.
I'm excited to crack into that box.
This is festive, probably
the most festive thing I've ever seen.
[laughter]
Each of you wants to take one of
the chocolate cubes on each corner.
And then one of
the little wooden rolling pins.
Go ahead and give it a... a good whack.
-Good whack?
-[Jon] Good.
-She's...
-[Candace] Do we need safety goggles?
-Ooh! There you go.
-Yeah.
-[Candace] Wow.
-There you go.
-[Jon] Okay.
-Okay! [laughing]
-[Candace] No... Whoo!
-[Hunter] Whoo!
-I gave it a good whack.
-So, inside you have a pecan puff,
-a chocolate sablé and peanut brittle.
-[Candace] Mmm!
-This is a good peanut brittle.
-[both] Thank you.
What do you think about our little
personal Advent calendar boxes?
Well, I think it was part
Advent calendar box and part piñata.
[laughter]
It was like... just a celebration.
Super fun, super delicious,
I really enjoyed it.
I love the whole interaction and theater.
-I felt accomplished opening that.
-[laughter]
And my kids love confetti, so,
you know, that was like a nice surprise.
Well, you definitely gave us a fun time,
now we're excited for a tasty one.
Go ahead and cut us four slices,
and we will see you at the judges' table.
[all] Thank you.
Okay, judges, let's go ahead and start
with Crystal and Stephanie's cake.
[Crystal] We did a Black Forest cake.
So we did a rich chocolate cake.
The filling is a sturdy diplomat cream
with a cherry compote,
and mini chocolate chips.
We finished it
with a faux Swiss meringue buttercream.
Crystal and Stephanie, your cake was
really an Advent calendar to behold.
I love the interactive nature
of being able to pull out an ornament
and see whether
I had been naughty or nice,
and my bonbon inside was really delicious.
Your cake itself is very tender.
I loved the juiciness
of those cherries inside.
The layers themselves
looked a bit rough and uneven.
It wasn't a very elegant slice.
But it definitely tasted delicious.
It was a very lovely Black Forest cake.
-Thank you.
-Thank you.
Crystal and Stephanie,
I love all the red little Advent boxes,
I thought that was very well done.
Flavor of the cake, I love the mousseline.
It was nice and light.
Delicious cake,
I could eat that any day of the week.
Thank you.
I love cherries, I love cream,
I love chocolate, and buttercream.
So, I'm an easy sell.
It was a true classic Black Forest cake.
My favorite part was just
how moist the cake was.
That's always...
You know, my cakes are not that moist.
Okay, judges. Let's go ahead
and switch to Jon and Ana's cake.
We have a devil's food cake
with a chocolate bavarois,
which is chocolate, crème anglaise,
and whipped cream folded together,
paired with a raspberry jam
and a chocolate hazelnut crisp.
Jon and Ana,
I love how you married this idea
of fine pâtisserie with
a grander scale decorated cake.
I think you pulled it off beautifully.
The cake itself,
true refinement, true elegance,
and sophistication on a plate.
The layers are creamy, tender, crunchy,
tangy, everything I want in a bite.
Thank you.
Jon and Ana, I loved the rolling pin,
it was interactive.
There was so much surprise,
there's a party going on in those boxes.
Everything inside tasted delicious,
it was full of color.
The taste of your cake, I love the crunch,
it added in a bit of texture in there.
The only thing I would say is
those raspberry jelly layers
need to be thicker.
It's an intense cake, and I think
it needs a bit more of that raspberry
-to really level it out.
-Okay.
I like smashin' things.
-[laughing]
-And so that was a lot of fun to me.
The cake is awesome.
Kind of piggy-backing on what he said,
you could've definitely put
more raspberries in there,
but it was great.
-Thank you.
-Thank you.
Thank you, bakers.
You've both done incredible.
There's only thing left to do,
and that is for our judges to decide
who's going home with $10,000.
Chris.
First of all, I'd like
to thank all of you guys.
This has been tremendous to watch,
so thank you for puttin' it all out there.
Crystal and Stephanie,
the cake was delicious. Very moist.
Jon and Ana, the Winter Wonderland
playground, so to speak,
was very creative and it was very festive.
You guys really, really
made it tough for me.
But my favorite is...
Jon and Ana.
Jon and Ana, that's one vote for you today
in the Sugar Rush Christmaskitchen.
One more vote means
you're going home with $10,000.
Adriano. Who had your favorite cake?
Jon and Ana, your cake was super moist,
lots of texture, I love the fun of it,
and the surprise inside
was, uh, very enjoyable.
Crystal and Stephanie,
you had a delicious, soft cake.
I loved how your ornaments
were all set out nicely.
The piping texture all around it
gave it a really good finish.
Today, my vote's gonna go with...
-Jon and Ana.
-Jon and Ana, congratulations!
You've just won $10,000
in the Sugar Rush Christmaskitchen.
Very, very well done.
Candace, how would you have voted?
I would've voted for Jon and Ana.
I thought the amount of technical skill
they showed was remarkable.
Amazing, let's go congratulate our bakers!
[Ana squeals]
Even though we didn't win,
I'm really proud of us.
-I'm so proud of what we were able to do.
-We are.
[Crystal] This was
the most amazing experience.
-[Stephanie] We had so much fun.
-[Crystal] So much.
-I'm just so thankful to have done this.
-Me too.
[Hunter] Congrats, man, awesome.
I'm like...
Is this real? Is this happening?
-I'm so proud of my friend.
-Aww!
[Jon] I know I could not have done
anything like this on my own,
and so I'm tremendously proud
to have such an accomplished
pastry chef by my side.
[Ana] I wouldn't be who I am without him.
This is the best Christmas present ever.
Thank you for watching
this episode of Sugar Rush Christmas.
Merry Christmas and happy holidays.