The Great American Baking Show Recap: The Finals

Two bakers entered, but only one left with the title of America’s best amateur baker on The Great American Baking Show tonight.

The Great American Baking Show had a better second season than the first, all in all. The challenges became more and more interesting, the increased level of competition made it tough to predict who would go home most of the time, and it’s always fun to see Mary Berry. Now, with the finals, it came down to Amanda and Stephanie. Just one came away with the win. Let’s recap.

For the Signature challenge, both bakers had to make 24 handheld savory pastries. They had to make two different types with different doughs and different fillings. With just two hours, the pressure was on. Naturally, flavors were the big order of the day, as was making sure that the pastries were properly filled and sealed. To make things just a bit tougher, bakers had to make two different shapes of handheld pies as well.

Alas, the Signature didn’t contain any Mary Berry flavor lessons, though Stephanie did take inspiration from Chinese dim sum for one of her pies. It did, however, involve lots of oven kneeling for both bakers as they checked what was going on for their pies.

Screengrab from The Great American Baking Show of Stephanie’s handheld pastries. Image via ABC.

Signature Challenge Results

• Stephanie: American Brunch and Chinese Dim Sum Pies. Pass. A slight underbake on her dim sum pies, but lots of praise for her flavors. Mary threw a bit of shade about using dried herbs, but didn’t have much room to complain otherwise.

Screengrab from the Great American Baking Show of Amanda’s handheld pastries. Image via ABC.

• Amanda: Breakfast and Lunch Handheld Pastries. Pass. Her “lunch” pastries didn’t have as good of a filling as the “breakfast” ones did in terms of flavor, but on the whole she had two very nice bakes.

Naturally, Mary assigned the final Technical challenge: make a Battenberg cake, otherwise known as a checkerboard cake. It requires multiple squares of cake then sliced and put together to create the effect, fresh marzipan and jam, which means lots of precision all around. When asked to give some advice, all she had to say was the standard advice from Mary: read your recipe and visualize. Amanda and Stephanie had two hours yet again to make this cake.

Screengrab from The Great American Baking Show of Mary Berry’s Battenberg cake. Image via ABC.

Technical Challenge Results

• 2nd: Amanda. The lack of jam to seal things together really did her in, as did a too-thick marzipan.
• 1st: Stephanie. Maybe she didn’t have the expected shape or perfect squares, but Mary called it “beautiful” in terms of flavor.

Going into the pre-Showstopper judging confab, Mary and Johnny flat-out said that things were pretty much even going into the final challenge.

Speaking of that final challenge, each baker had five hours to make a “winter celebration” dessert display for the finale party. Pastries, cookies, cakes, and more were all welcome, but there needed to be three separate items on display. Mary wanted “something fantastic”. Johnny warned against pushing too far in terms of challenging oneself.

Amanda took on the challenge of making peppermint hot chocolate joconde cakes, caramel religieuses, and apple cider sandwich cookies. On the other side, Stephanie made butterscotch pots de creme, mini eclairs with honey champagne filling, and black sesame macarons. Although Johnny said he thought Stephanie was challenging herself more, Mary thought the two were fairly even.

Still from Great American Baking Show. Image via ABC.

Mary also delivered her last lesson in what a religieuse is.

At the party, all of the bakers came back to celebrate among some potentially fake snow, since it had been raining earlier in the day.

Showstopper Challenge Results

Still from The Great American Baking Show. Image via ABC.

Well, things ended up quite close. Before we tell you the winner, though, let’s break down some of the commentary given by the judges.

Still from The Great American Baking Show. Image via ABC.

• Amanda: Her cookies needed to be a touch thinner and needed a touch more jam. The religieuse was a “bit of all right” per Mary, and the joconde cakes had just a few minor thoughts.

Still from The Great American Baking Show. Image via ABC.

• Stephanie: She nailed the macarons, with Johnny saying he’d be proud to serve them himself. The eclairs didn’t rise as much as they should have, and the pots de creme had just set, but they were good, too.

Ultimately, Amanda took home the victory as America’s best amateur baker and the winner of this season of The Great American Baking Show. With Mary Berry leaving the British equivalent, who knows if the show will return next season?

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