After what has been another amazing season filled with incredible bakes, Halloween Baking Championship season 11 came to a close with the four final bakers giving it their all in hopes of winning the title of Halloween Baking Champion and the $25,000 grand prize!
Kicking off the finale competition, host John Henson tasks the four remaining bakers with creating a dessert inspired by items you might see in a haunted garden that contains coffee. The winner of the final Haunted Heat Challenge will secure an advantage for the final challenge of the season, which could be the difference between winning it all and walking home empty-handed.
Alan gets the haunted maze and makes a pistachio dacquoise with tiramisu cream. The dish impresses the judges, who love the texture and flavor of the dish with few critiques.
After Alan managed to beat her to the haunted maze, Melanie ends up with the haunted fountain and decides to make a dirty chai latte tart with a pistachio cookie crust. While she didn’t want the fountain, she made it work delivering a dessert that wowed the judges with its presentation, but left them wanting a bit more texture.
Cory decided to draw inspiration from pumpkin spice lattes for his haunted gazebo dessert, serving up a cookie cake that left the judges wanting a little acid and more sandy cookies. That left Oksana with the haunted tree, which she used to make a coffee torte with passion fruit. While the judges loved her flavor, they wanted more passion fruit.
After tasting all of the bakers’ dishes, Alan managed to get the win, and in doing so, he gets an amazing advantage. For the final challenge, the bakers must each make a cake based on a fear. Each baker writes down two ways they’re afraid to die, and for his advantage, Alan gets to select the fear he’ll adapt for his cake and then assign fears to his fellow bakers.
Alan takes the fear of being skinned alive for his theme, he then assigns Melanie with the fear of being crushed to death, Oksana with the fear of being eaten by a bug, and Cory with the fear of drowning.
The bakes go rather smoothly without any real setbacks for the bakers, with each taking a unique spin on their flavors and designs. Following their final bake in the Food Network kitchen, it’s time for judgment.
Up first, Cory presents his chocolate fudge and orange cake inspired by the fear of drowning. The judges love the way he conveyed drowning in the cake, but they have some issues with the cake’s execution. Stephanie isn’t getting enough orange and feels the cake is a bit dry, a criticism Carla agrees with noting that there could have been a soak to help with the dryness of the cake.
Next up to present their final bake is Alan, who has whipped up a coconut, pineapple and pecan cake. The judges love the presentation, story, and flavor of his cake, but are left wanting another pineapple layer to balance things out better.
Moving along, Melanie makes a chocolate and peanut butter cake which wows the judges. Stephanie loves the monochromatic appearance of the cake and is moved to tears by Melanie’s story. Zac is moved to tears as well and loves the journey she has taken them on this season. All of the judges love the flavor of her cake with Carla’s only critique being that she would have loved to see some of the blackberries on the outside of the cake worked into the inside of the cake.
Finally, we have Okasana, who presents a black velvet and raspberry cake inspired by the fear of being eaten by a bug. The judges love the flavor, with no critiques given.
After tasting each of the baker’s cakes, the judges announce that the winner of Halloween Baking Championship season 11 is Melanie! It’s an emotional finale as Melanie used her cake to send a powerful message about struggling with self-doubts. It was beautiful seeing Melanie's journey and capping that journey off with a victory that proved that she is deserving of good things. It's a message we all can need a reminder of at times and it was a touching way to close the season.