Jeff Mauro leads a tour of The Kitchen's most surprising recipes, starting with his Magic No-Bread Meatballs with a secret low-carb mix-in. Then, Sunny Anderson and Katie Lee Biegel show off some secret-ingredient smoothies with some healthy new additions. Plus, Sunny reveals how peanut butter just might be the best way to make your pulled pork flavorful and rich. Martha Stewart drops by to cook Turkey Burgers with an added twist to make them extra juicy, and Lindsay-Jean Hard shows the hosts how you can make a banana cake with banana peels! Finally, Katie whips up an expected appetizer with her Parmesan-Stuffed Strawberries with Balsamic.
Bring on the beef! Four chefs battle it out with bovine-centric ingredients. In the first round, more than one of the competitors decide to show off their raw talent by serving uncooked meat. The chefs demonstrate their steak skills with the second basket, and some setbacks in the dessert round leave the outcome of the competition up in the air.
It's time for kick-off as Cake Wars celebrates one of the longest-standing traditions of college football, the Rose Bowl game! Four bakers show up for the coin toss, but only one cake can score the game-winning touchdown, earn their way to the party and take home $10,000. Former NFL player and Rose Bowl champion Lawrence Jackson serves as guest judge.
The seven junior finalists' creativity is put to the test when they cook up their two best brunch dishes, using fresh-squeezed orange juice in one dish and serving the other dish in an actual orange. Finalists present their dishes on a morning talk show to mentors Tia Mowry and Donal Skehan, along with special guest mentor and YouTube star Elise Strachan.
Marcela puts her own personal and contemporary spin on some Mexican classics. In this episode she'll share a creative short-cut and secret ingredient for making the 'easiest' Chicken Mole Enchiladas ever, whip up a beautiful Golden Beet Carpaccio-style Salad drizzled with chile infused olive oil, and show viewers how to make her son's favorite cinnamon sugar crispy dessert, Buñuelos.
Forget about fast-food burritos, heavy creams and fried tortillas, in this episode Marcela will show how traditional Mexican food is unprocessed and healthy, as she whips up four especially 'healthy Mexican" recipes: grilled steak tacos rolled in lettuce leaves; spicy shrimp broth with lime and cilantro; Mexican chayote squash with cool yogurt dip; and a citrus spritzer sweetened with agave syrup.
Things get sizzling as Michael Symon makes a Grilled Strip Steak with Anchovy Garlic Butter that even non-steak lovers will die for. To lighten things up, he combines fresh tomatoes from his garden with orecchiette for an easy-to-please Pasta Salad, while Liz makes a bourbon-based Boulevardier that shows Michael what he's been missing all his life.
Five remaining teams made up of an expert pumpkin carver, a cake artist and a sugar artist go into battle to create amazing and tasty Halloween-themed displays that show the horrific, hideous monsters that disguise themselves with normal, human faces. Actor Robert Patrick, known for his portrayals in The X-Files and Terminator 2: Judgement Day, joins the judging panel.
In Middletown, N.Y., an unforgivable mistake has driven a wedge between Franco Di Roma's married owners. Franco refuses to change, Karen refuses to show up, their son refuses to work with them and the restaurant is on the brink of collapse. Robert must help them bridge the divide and forgive each other or their restaurant and family might not survive.
For their final challenge, the last two teams standing must create a scene that shows a modern-day spell being cast and includes one special effect plus three complete characters. Then, it's up to Jonathan Bennett, Shinmin Li and Aarti Sequeira to make their toughest decision yet: who will be crowned Halloween Wars champion and take home the grand prize of $25,000?