Rob Pryce
Megan portrait, as seen on Holiday Baking Championship, Season 7.
On the third episode of Food Network’s “Holiday Baking Championship,” Legacy Cakes owner and Keller baker Megan Rountree demonstrated her pastry skills during two distinct pie challenges.
During the first heat, the nine remaining bakers faced pie pandemonium with the holiday mini pie challenge. After randomly selecting cookie butter as her star ingredient, Megan baked a mini cookie butter cream pie with a speculoos cookie crust.
“I am very happy with the cookie butter,” Megan says in the episode. “I think spice in the cookie butter automatically makes you think of the holidays.”
Bakers were also asked to top their respective pies with a holiday cookie, so Megan accented her creation with a cinnamon sugar cookie, designed to resemble a Christmas wreath.
Megan has proved herself to be a top competitor, which judge Duff Goldman made sure to include in his remarks.
“I feel like every like bake sale or like potluck, there’s like two ladies in the corner like, ‘Well, you know Megan made that one,’” Duff says after Megan presented her final pie. “Let them talk!”
While the judges loved her pie’s mousse , they did raise concerns about her cookie accent, as it was fully covered in royal icing.
Megan then took on the main heat, where bakers were asked to celebrate fall flavor combinations using different pie techniques. Megan’s selections were apple-raisin and a lattice decoration, so she blended the two to create a memorable treat. The bakers were also given a twist during the challenge to add eggnog into their pies, so Megan soaked her apples in eggnog, hoping to infuse the fruit with the creamy flavor.
While her presentation was on point, the judges found several flaws with its construction.
“The pie looks amazing,” judge Carla Hall says during the episode. “But this is actually a piece of my lattice that’s not cooked and then the bottom is not cooked.”
Judge Nancy Fuller also had a critique for Megan.
“I would prefer the apple to be cooked a little longer,” Nancy says during the episode. “It’s pretty crunchy.”
While Megan was hoping to subtly infuse the twist ingredient into her pie, Duff craved more. With two of the competition’s top bakers providing lackluster pies, Duff expressed surprise that Megan and her fellow competitor Lorenzo Delgado did not create stand-out sweets.
“Our two rockstars, going down in flames,” Duff says as Megan walks off in the episode.
While Lorenzo ended the heat in the middle of the pack, Megan found herself in the bottom two. Thankfully, her pie was just enough to get her into the next round of competition.
Next week, the eight remaining bakers will create Thanksgiving-inspired desserts. Tune into Food Network on November 23 to see how far Megan will go.