Holiday Baking Championship season 10 episode 3: Pies, pies, pies

Candid of Jesse Palmer with art backdrop, as seen on Holiday Baking Championship, Season 6. photo provided by Food Network
Candid of Jesse Palmer with art backdrop, as seen on Holiday Baking Championship, Season 6. photo provided by Food Network

Holiday Baking Championship was back for episode three, and it was all about Thanksgiving this week! Football, desserts, and pies! What says Thanksgiving more?!

The episode started off with the bakers making seven-layer desserts. Jesse Palmer loves some seven-layer dip when he’s watching football, so he tasked the bakers with making a seven-layer holiday dessert.

These all looked pretty good, but there were a few issues. For some of the desserts, it was hard to tell that they had seven layers, while others were lacking in taste or were underbaked. The baker that was most disappointing was, unfortunately, Justine. Her puffed pastry was underbaked.

The winner of the Preheat was Ashley! And her advantage for the Elimination Challenge was pretty amazing. But let’s discuss the challenge first!

For this challenge, it was the show’s first pie-off. Two bakers were assigned the same pie flavor and they had to make their version of the same flavor pie and put it in one side of the pie pan.

It was all about pies on Holiday Baking Championship this week

From there, the judges would judge each half pie blindly and then pick the best of the two pies. One baker would be safe and one would be up for elimination.

Now for Ashley’s advantage. Not only would she get to pick her flavor but she would also get to pick her opponent. Ashley chose the cranberry brandy pie and she chose Greg as her opponent. I know this is a competition, but her reasons for choosing Greg felt incredibly condescending.

The other duos were Bert and Jennifer who had apple ginger pie, Justine and Thoa who had pear cranberry, Josh and Kevin who had maple plum, and Sharrod and Javier who had blackberry fig. Oh, and they all had to add some sort of cheese to their pie! This was a hard AF challenge.

So who won their rounds? The winners were Bert, Thoa, Kevin, Sharrod, and Ashley. Kevin took the overall win! This put Greg, Josh, Javier, Justine, and Jennifer up for elimination. But at the end of the day, it was really just Jennifer and Justine at risk of going home. Who went home? After being in the bottom two for three weeks in a row, Jennifer went home.

Next week, the remaining bakers will have to make a Mont Blanc for the Preheat and upside-down cakes for the Elimination challenge.

What did you think of this week’s Holiday Baking Championship? What was your favorite dessert? Stay tuned to Guilty Eats for all the latest food TV news!