Photo: Patrick Wymore
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Toasted Coconut Sponge with Lemon Curd Whipped Cream
For the Easter egg and nest Pre Heat challenge in the premiere, Heather created a nest from a sour cream sponge cake that she rolled in white chocolate lemon curd and toasted coconut and praline bits. Her hatched egg was created by dipping a blown-up balloon into melted candy melts. It was filled with lemon curd whipped cream.
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Photo: Patrick Wymore
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Limoncello Mascarpone Mousse with Strawberry Lemon Cake Pop
Courtney created a white chocolate nest with a limoncello mascarpone mousse, topped with an oval-shaped cake ball filled with strawberries to represent the egg.
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Photo: Patrick Wymore
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Mango, 4 Ways
For the tropical teamwork Pre Heat challenge, Fausto and Jordan took their theme of mango to the next level with four iterations: a creme brulee, sous-vide mango with a cinnamon crumble, mango sorbet, and a mango lassi.
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Photo: Patrick Wymore
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Key Lime Tart and Key Lime Frozen Souffle
For their team dishes, Adam and Daniela presented a Key lime tart with graham cracker crust, meringue topping and strawberry-tequila sauce, plus a frozen Key lime souffle with ginger-infused blueberries.
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Photo: Patrick Wymore
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Blueberry Crumble Doughnuts with Buttermilk Cream Cheese Glaze
Going with her Las Vegas theme, Heather created blueberry crumb doughnuts with buttermilk and cream cheese glaze, decorating each with designs that hint at casino gambling.
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Photo: Patrick Wymore
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Confetti Doughnuts
Inspired by her Main Heat theme, spring cruise, Courtney baked vanilla confetti doughnuts decorated with Hawaiian and Caribbean designs.
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Butter Tea Cookies, Shortbread Cookies, Sugar Cookies
For the Kentucky Derby-inspired Main Heat, Courtney created a cookie garland that featured green butter tea cookies, lemon shortbread cookies shaped like flowers, and vanilla sugar cookies decorated with icing to look like roses.
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Butter Cookies, Shortbread Cookies, Chocolate Chip Cookies
Jordan presented piped citrus butter cookies, vanilla shortbread cookies with sprinkles, orange chocolate chip cookies dipped in blue candy melts, and strawberries carved into roses.
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Shortbread Cookies, Chocolate Chip Cookies, Pecan Thumbprint Cookies
John won the Main Heat with his garland of shortbread cookies decorated with different colors of sanding sugar, soft chocolate chip cookies, pecan thumbprint cookies, and a bow with roses and leaves made from fondant.
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Dark Chocolate Skinny Brownie with Raspberries
Adam won the Pre Heat with his skinny brownies layered with chocolate mousse and creme fraiche mousse, served with orange liqueur-flambeed raspberries on the side, and each topped with a chocolate mousse-filled raspberry.
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Orange and Vanilla Bean Napoleon with Orange Liqueur
Courtney's napoleon featured a top layer of orange liqueur-infused mousseline and a bottom layer of pastry cream, which included chocolate ganache piped into the middle.
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Lemon, Cherry and Goat Cheese Napoleon with Cherry Liqueur
Adam finished in second place in the Main Heat with this napoleon that featured a lemon curd layer as well as a caramelized goat cheese mousse layer with cherry liqueur-glazed cherries.
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Classic Fruit Tart with Shortbread Crust
For the Mother's Day Pre Heat, John created a tart with a vanilla bean pastry cream. His special touch was painting the bottom of the crust with melted chocolate to ensure it stayed crisp.
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Bountiful Fruit Tart with Passion Fruit Mousse
Adam won the Pre Heat with his fruit tart that featured a pile of all different kinds of fruit. His attention to detail really struck the judges.
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Pineapple Upside-Down Cake Trifle
For the Main Heat challenge of modernizing vintage desserts, Daniela layered mini cakes with caramelized pineapple, coconut cream and cherries. Although the judges found her dessert to be on the rustic side, Daniela came in second place.
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Deconstructed Lemon Meringue Pie
Jordan won the Main Heat with his modernized dessert. Lemon curd, lemon mousse and Swiss meringue dotted his dish, which had a crumble as the base. On the side he served a limoncello sorbet.
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Sognac-Soaked Chocolate Whoopie Pie with Mascarpone and Cherries
The judges adored what Adam created for the spring critters Pre Heat, calling them his drunken ladybug whoopie pies. He made the wings out of isomalt, and used coating chocolate for the bugs' red shells.
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Cookies and Cream Whoopie Pie
Daniela won the Pre Heat with the flavors of her chocolate whoopie pies, sandwiched with cookies and cream marshmallow filling. She created green caterpillars for the challenge.
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Yellow Cake with Passion Fruit Syrup, Berries and Chantilly Cream
Adam's marbleized design was created by pouring white and blue mirror glaze over his cake. And since the Main Heat called for a drip cake with a 3D rainbow, Adam created perfect drips around the cake's perimeter. His finishing touch included a flower made from white chocolate.
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Strawberry Lemonade Cake
Daniela won the Main Heat with her drip cake, which featured strawberry frosting and a lemon cake interior. The concept for her drip cake was a dropped ice cream cone that melted all over the cake.
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Photo: Emile Wamsteker
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Strawberry-Chocolate Cupcake, Chocolate Chip Blondie with Milk Chocolate Ganache, Pancetta and Swiss Cheese Cornbread
For the finale Memorial Day-themed Pre-Heat challenge, Jordan created the winning trio, two sweet treats and one savory.
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Photo: Emile Wamsteker
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All-American Chocolate Cake
For the American flag-inspired finale Main Heat, Adam created a Cognac-soaked chocolate cake with three different fillings: ganache, milk chocolate praline and dark chocolate Bavarian cream. His decorations included coils and streamers made from pulled sugar.
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Photo: Emile Wamsteker
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Vanilla Cake with Lime Curd and Cream Cheese Frosting
Daniela was inspired by fireworks in coming up with her American flag-inspired cake, which she decorated with frosting rosettes, and streaming stars.
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Photo: Emile Wamsteker
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Banana Pound Cake with Swiss Buttercream and Caramelized Bananas
With his all-out American flag cake, Jordan won the Main Heat, $50,000 and the champion title. Jordan baked four square cakes to assemble the flag, and precisely measured every fondant stripe to ensure the flag looked authentic.
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Photo: Patrick Wymore
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More Spring Baking Championship
Relive top moments from the competition, meet the bakers of Season 3, and get ideas and recipes for your seasonal baking at home.