CAUTION: CONTAINS SPOILERS for Ultimate Baking Championship!!

Well, what did we think of the final, you guys?

I’m a bit sad. Y’all know who I was rooting for. I kinda felt like the judges were too hard on him… “I expected more”?! “The details are off”?! Complaining about those little strings of chocolate on the pips of the dice? Come on now. I was a little peeved about that. Like did they even look at his roulette cake?! With that gleaming, realistic wood grain chocolate shell? And the way that it actually functioned as a playable game?! That thing was incredible.

But as soon as I saw Molly making her little “VIP Passes,” I knew she had it in the bag. It just looked like something that the judges would simp for. And it was. Her whole design was so extra. It was so “cover of Food Network magazine.” As the kids would say: she did the most. She really took the theme and ran with it – those beautiful bonbons! The tempered chocolate decorations! Yes, she truly deserved to win.

However, I also am just kind of generally disappointed with the way this show has gone. Do you agree? It should have been Juan, Clement, and either Robert or Christopher, in the final. As far as I can tell, those four were 100% the most skilled bakers on this show!

It kind of seems like the judging was engineered to keep it surprising, to keep us on our toes. To keep the plot juicy. Not saying that Molly and Florencia aren’t deserving. They are both insanely talented geniuses. It’s just, I kind of get the sense that this show wasn’t actually about raw talent, so much as it was about “how do you perform under pressure as a TV star,” “how well do you represent the Food Network vision specifically.” Which is fair. Molly had the best story; from day one, they’ve been hyping her up as “the exciting one!” “the reckless one!” “the daredevil!” “the youngest contestant on the show!”, setting her up for an exciting victory. Not that she didn’t absolutely deserve the win tonight. She ticked all the boxes and then some! Major congratulations to her.

And speaking of Florencia, she had some guts making a pineapple dessert in the finale when she’s allergic to pineapple and can’t even taste it! Apparently she makes that dessert at her shop at home regularly, so she was confident making it. I’m with Jacques on this one, though; spicy desserts do not interest me. Dessert is supposed to be pleasurable, not painful! But I especially appreciated Florencia tonight, because she was the only one who didn’t use booze in every single one of her desserts.

Well, that’s it for this season. Has anyone heard if there’s going to be a Summer Baking Championship or not?! I need another baking competition show to watch ASAP! Please don’t tell me I have to wait until GBBO comes back in September, I will cry.

HERE’S THE RECAP:

Only One Challenge: Epic Presentation Showpiece: One main dessert and two smaller desserts. Themes chosen in order of last week’s leaderboard, so Clement got first dibs, then Molly. Six hours, points awarded out of 100 (25 points per judge)

• Clement: “Las Vegas” gambling table: chocolate-cherry entremet “roulette” cake; strawberry-champagne playing cards, and chocolate shortbread-praline-bourbon mousse dice
• Molly: “Rock ‘n Roll After Party” blacked-out entremet with stout cake and malted milk cremeux; Old Fashioned “cigar” petit gateaus; and “High Voltage” bonbons with yuzu and raspberry
• Florencia: “Carnival” circus tent entremet with chocolate brownie, spicy pineapple mousse, and guava gelee; milk chocolate flexible ganache pretzels; “candied apple” mousse desserts with apple compote and green apple mousse

Stats: Clement 79; Florencia 71; Molly 91

~*~ Ultimate Baking Champion: Molly ~*~

A dessert is called “sexy”: 0 times. Season Total Sexy Desserts: 3

Superlatives from the judges: 1, Duff telling Clement the strawberry champagne petit gateau was the “best thing he’d made.” Season Total Superlatives: 5

Dead family members mentioned: 0. Season Total Dead Relatives: 4

Duff’s gaping maw spotted: 1 time. Season Total Duff’s Gaping Maw: 16 times (an average of once per contestant!)

The dessert that I would most have liked to eat: Florencia’s faux “candied apple,” which was fascinating, and also one of the only desserts tonight that didn’t contain alcohol

Wins so far: Molly (2), Clement (2), Christopher (1), Casey (2), Juan (2)