Halloween Baking Championship is back with season 9

Fall is officially here because the Halloween Baking Championship is back on The Food Network. It’s season 9 of the spooky baking competition, and this year, the theme is spooky carnival. But while the theme is different this year, the judges and the host are the same.

John Henson is back as the host and Carla Hall, Stephanie Boswell, and Zac Young are back as the judges.

The season began with 12 bakers coming into the kitchen through a huge creepy clown mouth. Their first challenge was to make a tiramisu with decorations inspired by a tarot card and with a specific flavor. It also had to tell the story of one of the carnival’s worker’s untimely demise.

With such a familiar dessert as tiramisu, this was a great challenge to get to know the bakers. And as you can imagine, some of the bakers made amazing creations that were spooky, delicious, and gorgeous looking. Other bakers…struggled. It was hard to recognize what was going on with some of these tiramisus.

Halloween Baking Championship season 9 is already here

But who came out on top with this first challenge? It was Hollie and Ryan with Ryan coming out on top with his bone-breaking tiramisu.

On to the Killer challenge! If you’re afraid of clowns, you may want to skip this challenge. The bakers had to make a creepy clown cake. And the twist? They had to incorporate a fried carnival treat into their cakes.  And since Ryan won the first challenge, he was able to pick his carnival treat first (he picked fried bacon).

These were too creepy for their own good. Nightmare-inducing! But like the first challenge, some bakers had some issues here as well. One baker forgot to add his fried snack to his cake while others were just a bit of a mess.

Who won overall? The top two were once again Hollie and Ryan and once again, Ryan took the top spot. In my opinion, this was the wrong choice. Hollie’s cake was infinitely spookier and according to the judges, just as delicious.

But what about who went home? The bottom three included Mike whose cake did not turn out well, James who forgot to put his churros on his cake, and Chad who completely missed the mark with the decorations on his cake (and it is questionable whether there were beets in his cake). Unfortunately, Mike was the one to go home first.

Next week on Halloween Baking Championship, the remaining bakers will have to make bloody donuts and then create a creepy carousel cake.

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