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Bruce France
Contestant Jessica Colvin decorates her water color cake during the main heat, as seen on Spring Baking Championship, Season 5.
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Southlake's very own Jessica Colvin made her television debut last night on the premiere of Spring Baking Championship. The home baker competed against nine other passionate pastry makers to see who would walk away with $25,000 and a feature in “Food Network Magazine.”
Warning: There are spoilers included in this article. Please take that into consideration before reading on.
In the first episode of season five titled “Spring Has Sprung” the 10 bakers from around the globe are put to the test in two different challenges. After taking in the beautiful kitchen, host Clinton Kelly introduced the first bake-off: creating spring animal donuts.
Bakers had to run up and choose their spring inspiration and had 90 minutes to create a dozen decorated treats. While other contestants chose critters like the otter, beaver and skunk, Jessica selected the white-tailed deer.
While making her blueberry cake donut with lemon glaze, Jessica had the chance to speak with her fellow bakers and explain her backstory to viewers.
“In the daytime, I’m Mom doing all the mom things. But yeah, when they go to bed, I run a pretty successful business making custom cakes and cookies and pastries,” Jessica explains during the episode.
As the only home baker, Jessica knows she may be seen as a longshot for the title, but she's ready to give it her all to see if she can come out on top.
“I want to win for my kids and to show them that you can be the underdog and you can come out on top.”
Jessica had plans to create antlers to accentuate her deer inspiration, but her final product did not include the molded design. Instead, she used graham crackers and food coloring to create a green moss.
“If I can’t make this a deer, I can at least make this as springy as possible,” Jessica explains.
The competition’s panel designated with judging the bakers includes pastry chef Lorraine Pascale, pastry chef and owner of Charm City Cakes Duff Goldman and chef and entrepreneur Nancy Fuller. During the Preheat, the name of the first challenge, the judges had mixed reviews after reviewing Jessica’s donuts.
Goldman refers to the donuts “very beautiful” and “an A+ on spring.” But Pascale states, “But dear, there is no deer here.” All of the judges agreed that the donuts had a nice bake and flavors but were expecting to see more of the animal influence come through.
At the end of the first round, one baker – Riccardo Menicucci from San Francisco – was crowned the winner, which meant he was able to have the first choice of inspiration in the Main Heat.
Sticking with the nature theme, Kelly let the bakers know their next challenge would be to create a watercolor cake masterpiece that showcases a typical spring ingredient.
Riccardo got the first choice in his ingredient choice and selected the strawberry. But that didn’t pose any problem with Jessica as she darted straight for the Cherry when it was her time to fight for her ingredient.
With two hours on the clock, Jessica got to work creating her toasted almond cake with mascarpone cherry filling and Swiss buttercream.
“This challenge is going to be right up my alley,” Jessica says. “I studied art, and I love baking cakes.
Using sugar, almond paste, almond flour, baking soda and powder, eggs, milk and amaretto, Jessica was able to create a balanced cake that she could decorate with colored buttercream.
Other bakers enhanced ingredients like apricot, fennel, strawberry and carrot with their cakes, but all of the contestants had to take the time to think out their watercolor designs.
With less than an hour left in the challenge, Kelly asked for all the bakers to listen as he dropped a surprise mandatory twist on their plates. On top of their cakes, Kelley asked each contest to create a 3D sculpture representing their ingredient that would act as a decoration. Bakers had to blindly choose which decorative sculpting element they would work with. Jessica ended up with gum paste, which she took in stride.
“This twist is no problem,” Jessica says. “I was planning to put cherries on top of my cake anyway, so now I’ll just make them out of gum paste.”
Other contestants did not radiate Jessica’s positivity with their twists. Fondant and isomalt seemed to cause the largest problems for their chefs.
When Jessica started painting, she used different hues of reds, pinks and greens to emulate that classic cherry look. And with a few cherries on top, Jessica got rave reviews from the judges.
Goldman started out by asking Jessica if she makes a lot of cakes, and when Jessica responded with a yes, Goldman said he could tell.
“You are really straight; you are really flat; you are really clean,” Goldman says.
Pascale described her first reaction of the cake as being taken away by its abstractness.
“A lot of attention to detail has gone into the cherries,” Pascale continues. “Nice work!”
After getting a taste of the cake itself, the judges continued to give positive feedback. Commenting on the moistness of the cake and the strong almond flavors, the panel agreed it was a nice bake.
The judges continued to try all nine other cakes and it was eventually Washington D.C. pastry chef Kendra Stephens who went home for having a dark watercolored cake that the judges thought lacked delicacy and a strong cherry flavor. She was the only other baker who worked with cherry as a key ingredient.
So Jessica not only survived but thrived during her first week of “Spring Baking Championship.” To see how far she gets, we’ll just have to tune in next week for the “Spring at the County Fair” episode where bakers will be challenged to create larger-than-life desserts inspired by infamous fairground treats. The episode premieres on March 25 at 8:30 p.m.