Spring Baking Championship Momcentric Desserts Mother’s Day Tributes

Mother’s Day celebrates the very important women in our lives. During this week’s Spring Baking Championship, momcentric desserts are filled with Mother’s Day tributes.

With the competition down to just five bakers, no one is safe in the Spring Baking Championship kitchen. After last week’s pastry dough disasters, hopefully the bakers have learned their lesson. Undercooked dough isn’t worthy of winning the ultimate prize. In this week’s episode, the bakers pay tribute to mom with momcentric desserts.

Like every episode, the bakers competed in a pre-heat challenge. This week’s pre-heat challenged the bakers to make a fruit tart and to write a love poem to mom. While the series has already tackled cookie bouquets, the fruit tart from the heart challenge was to emulate a beautiful bouquet for mom. The intricately laid fruit over a delicate tart crust is a perfect spring time dessert for mom.

Preheat challenge, fruit tarts from the heart.

Luckily, the pre-heat challenge saw fewer pastry failures. While a few tart crusts were blond (meaning they were slightly under-baked), only Daniella’s tart crust was quite sad. Since she didn’t chill her dough, the tart crust shrunk while baking. Unfortunately, this mistake put her at the bottom of the first challenge.

The other downfall some bakers had were their knife skills. Even in baking, good knife skills make for successful fruit tarts. Uneven cuts make for less than perfect fruit tart presentations. A few bakers needed to sharpen up on their cutting.

Momcentric desserts, Fruit Tart From The Heart, photo from the Food Network

In addition to the fruit tart, bakers had to write a poem to mom. While the words were heartfelt, many bakers should stick to the kitchen. They did a better job expressing themselves with food versus poems.

With an over the top presentation and delicious flavor combinations, Adam’s fruit tart won the pre-heat challenge. Even with a slightly blond tart crust, his flavors and presentation won over the judges. The win gained him an advantage in the main heat.

Adam’s advantage in the main heat was to choose his momcentric dessert makeover. In addition, he was able to choose the other bakers’ choice order. Each baker was given a classic mom-favorite dessert to modernize.

Momcentric Desserts, Spring Baking Championship, photo from Food Network

Momcentric desserts: Modernize a vintage dessert.

The five bakers modernized the following vintage desserts: lemon meringue pie, pineapple upside-down cake, bread pudding, chocolate cream pie, and peach cobbler. Some bakers embraced the modernization challenge while other bakers didn’t push the envelope enough. Professional bakers seemed to have an edge in this challenge.

Of course, there is always a twist in the main heat challenge. In this vintage dessert modernization, the bakers had to incorporate maraschino cherries. Labeled the ultimate retro ingredient, the maraschino cherries should stay in a kiddie cocktail. Some desserts were okay with the secret ingredient while others didn’t utilize it creatively.

Adam, the pre-heat winner, choose peach cobbler. He believed that the peaches, a stone fruit, offered great versatility. While he didn’t want to make a traditional cobbler, Adam tried to mimic the flavors and textures of the vintage dessert. One modern twist he used was sous vide peaches. Placing the peaches in a sealed plastic bag, sous vide cooks food in a slow water bath at a constant, low temperature. The peaches absorbed a tremendous amount of flavor with this technique.

Although big on flavor, Daniella’s dessert lacked presentation appeal. Her pineapple upside down trifle was a little muddled looking and wasn’t too modern. But, her flavors in this dessert were delicious. Nancy commented that who cares how it looks when it tastes so good. It landed her in the top two bakers.

Vintage Dessert Makeover, photo by Food Network

Jordan was really excited about this modernization dessert challenge. His lemon meringue pie was as beautiful as it was delicious. The lemon curd, pastry cream and creative presentation pushed his dessert to be crowned this week’s winner.

Personally, I didn’t understand John’s bread pudding dessert. Maybe it’s my aversion to cream cheese with bread. Plus, the combination of a warm buttered rum sauce over the bread pudding and pastry cream didn’t sound modern either. John seemed to lack the modern touch, but the judges applauded his dessert’s flavors.

The bottom two bakers were Courtney and John. The judges argued over attention to detail, like a professional baker versus an at-home baker. Sloppy desserts can’t just be called rustic. It’s like saying de-constructed desserts are the same as a dessert failure. A creative label doesn’t make it taste better.

Courtney modernized the chocolate cream pie. Throughout the challenge, she struggled with her dessert. Her chocolate was a little dry but her pie crust cookies were good. The judges commented that her modern vintage dessert just seemed to be a little lacking.

Unfortunately, Courtney was sent home on this week’s episode. Earlier in the episode, she revealed that her mom is battling colon cancer. It was disheartening that she was sent home on a momcentric dessert challenge given her personal reveal early in the episode.

Next: Spring Baking Championship: Dessert Remodels

As the Spring Baking Championship comes down to the final episodes, who will be crowned the best Spring baker? Don’t miss the next episode, Rainy Day Sweets, on Sunday, April 9 at 9 p.m. ET on the Food Network.