Despite what things may look like outside, spring is in the air thanks to the return of the Spring Baking Championship. The Food Network baking competition is returning for its seventh season.
Although we have some new names and faces from last year’s Spring Baking Championship, I couldn’t be happier to see the show return.
This season will start out with 11 bakers aiming for the $25,000 grand prize plus a feature in Food Network Magazine. With the premiere on February 22nd, we will see new challenges for all of the bakers in a similar setup to the past. We will still see the “pre-heat” which will give one baker a competitive advantage for the “main heat” which will result in one baker being sent home.
The host this season will be Ali Khan which you may know from his hosting of Cheap Eats on the Cooking Channel. On Cheap Eats, Khan shared some of the best burgers and tacos that a small amount of money can buy. With the baking championship, we are sure to see less guilty eats and more refined confectionaries. As Khan expressed to TV Insider, there is a wide range of contestants for this season. If you have watched in the past, it is always interesting to see how the classically trained and home-taught bakers compare throughout the competition.
Spring Baking Championship will have a different host and a new judge this season
Khan is not the only new face this season. Kardea Brown will be replacing Lorraine Pascale at the judges’ table this season. While Brown is the new kid on the block for the judges, she is an accomplished cook and baker in her own right. Hopefully, she can meet the chemistry of fellow judges Duff Goldman and Nancy Fuller. As Khan said,
"The chemistry on the show is crazy. Nancy and Duff rag on each other, which is hilarious. Kardea will look at Duff and I and say, ‘You two are like seven-year-old boys. It was a lot of fun."
As I am sure we will see plenty of delicious-looking baked products, the challenges themselves will be part of the fun and entertainment. The contestants will be pushed to their limits this season as always. One fun challenge Khan let us in on was a Love is Blind themed challenge. When it airs, we will see the bakers paired up with a screen dividing the workstations in half. Each pair worked as a team but could not see what the other baker was doing. Everything had to be done by verbal communication to make a cake and merge the final products together. I cannot wait to see how it turns out.
Season seven of Spring Baking Championship begins on February 22nd with a special two-hour premiere. Bakers will go home until we have the champion crowned in the finale.