When the holiday season arrives in Vermont, snow caps the green mountains and powdered sugar falls like snowflakes in Gesine Prado's kitchen. To celebrate the season, Gesine hosts a gingerbread house-making party for her friends, and the menu is equally festive. She bakes Pistachio Cinnamon Stars and Gingerbread Cookies in cheerful shapes, and she sets out Sugared Spicy Almonds for snacking. Gesine's centerpiece is a Chocolate Yule Log with a Gingerbread Ax Topper that knocks her guests off their feet.
Bakery owners come to Carlo's Bakery to show Buddy Valastro their signature dishes including a Chocolate-Cinnamon-Pecan Roll, Salty Sweet Pretzel Bark, a Fancy Almond Cake and a Savory Meat Pie. The difficult obstacles lead to the nail-biting final moments of the competition where one baker is forced to change their recipe on the fly and another has a full-on machine meltdown. In the end, Buddy and his advisors are left with making the difficult decision of whose signature dish was best.
These festive cookies are a playful twist on the beloved Italian bakery classic -- but with a surprise inside. Almond-scented tricolor dough surrounds a sweet pocket of jam, then gets dressed up with a double dose of chocolate and a dunk in sprinkles.