Season 9: Meet the Competitors 13 Photos

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Food Network Stars As Kids
Browse photos of your favorite stars as you've never seen them before.
Kids Baking How-Tos
Cream Puff Swans 10 Photos
These impressive pastries are perfect for any occasion.
Ice Cream Sandwiches 9 Photos
These frozen treats are easier to make than they look.
Tips for Young Bakers
Bakers in Training 6 Videos
Watch these videos and practice baking at home with your kids.
Crowd-Pleasing Cakes & Cupcakes
Make any get-together a little sweeter with homemade cakes for any occasion.
Episodes
See Episode GuideImposters Italiano
Valerie Bertinelli and Duff Goldman love Italian food so much they're challenging the bakers to create lasagna dessert imposters! The bakers must create meat lasagna, spinach-and-mushroom lasagna or veggie-pesto lasagna imposters if they want to stay in the game.
You're in the Ballpark
Thirteen-year-old singing ventriloquist Darci Lynne and her puppet Petunia hang out at the ballpark with Valerie Bertinelli and Duff Goldman while they enjoy their favorite stadium snack of all -- popcorn! This buttery treat inspires the Big Bake challenge where the kid bakers are tasked with making over-the-top popcorn desserts.
Bite-Sized Birthday Party
Valerie Bertinelli and Duff Goldman love birthday parties at the park so they're taking this inspiration to the Big Bake Challenge. The kid bakers are tasked with creating bite-sized birthday party desserts for an outdoor birthday party and serving them on mini picnic tables!
Winning Colors
Thunder claps and lightning strikes greet the bakers but when the storms pass, a rainbow appears and inspires the final challenge -- rainbow cakes! Valerie Bertinelli and Duff Goldman want cakes that have rainbows on the inside and outside. Whoever has the best rainbow cake will win $25,000, a spot in Food Network Magazine and the title of Kids Baking Champion!
Bakin' with Bacon
It's no secret that Valerie Bertinelli loves lemon, but Duff Goldman's favorite ingredient is revealed in this season's kick-off challenge -- bacon cupcakes! Each of the 12 young bakers must make a cupcake featuring bacon and an assigned ingredient like maple, chocolate or cherry.
Spots and Stripes Forever
Duff Goldman and Valerie Bertinelli take the 11 young bakers on a safari of sweetness as they challenge them to create mini cheesecakes with colorful animal prints, from tiger and zebra stripes to leopard and giraffe spots.
Brownies vs. Blondies
Duff Goldman and Valerie Bertinelli raise the eternal question: Which are better, brownies or blondies? To settle the debate, they divide the 10 young bakers into teams for the brownies vs. blondies challenge.
Macaron Madness
Macarons are a wildly popular dessert, and macarons decorated with faces are a definite trend. Valerie Bertinelli and Duff Goldman challenge the nine young bakers to create macarons decorated with happy faces and sad faces.
Opposites Attract
Valerie Bertinelli and Duff Goldman put the eight young bakers in teams and challenge them to each make half a cake that combines with their teammate's half-cake to make a whole cake representing an opposites theme like fire and ice, night and day, land and sea or big and small.
Freaky Flavors
Duff Goldman and Valerie Bertinelli are cooking up something unusual in the science lab ... it's the freaky flavor tarts challenge! Each of the seven young bakers must create a large tart featuring a freaky flavor like jalapeno, goat cheese, yuzu, pink peppercorn, anise, blue cheese or curry.
Monkey See, Monkey Bake
Valerie Bertinelli and Duff Goldman know that sometimes you can make something extraordinary out of ingredients you have at home. They challenge the six young bakers to turn packaged biscuit dough into dramatic and delicious monkey bread volcanoes.