Denver pastry chef Zac Mercer has survived the first round of Meals Network’s “Halloween Baking Championship,” while not without some blood reduction.
The initially episode of Time 8, which began airing on Monday, Sept. 12 on Foods Network and streaming on Discovery+, located Mercer striving to impress judges Stephanie Boswell, Carla Corridor and Zac Youthful with “devilishly scrumptious desserts (to) earn the title of Halloween Baking Champion and an all-price journey to the 10 most haunted motels in The us.”
Mercer is also a drag performer from Colorado who performs beneath the title Pass up Carrie. He bakes out of his home underneath the title Overlook Carrie’s Munchies, teaches drag household-cooking courses, and otherwise “merges the worlds of entertaining drag displays and cooking lessons,” according to Food items Community.
The good news is, Mercer squeezed by the first, “supersized” spherical with a delightful “blood spatter” cake that received kudos for its burnt-honey flavors — but was docked when it was “disemboweled” for judges, letting its strawberry marshmallow ooze out. It necessary a little bit additional work on its texture, though its convincingly visceral appearance was 180 degrees from its overall deliciousness, judges claimed.
Mercer responded that he’s labored in haunted homes considering the fact that he was 15, and that he works by using his distinctive-results experience just about every day in his job. (We’d really like to see a photorealistic heart cake, but we’ll just take what we can get!)
The exhibit is hosted by John Henson, the former host of “Talk Soup” and co-host of “Wipeout” (no relation to renowned puppeteer Jim Henson), and properly can take place in a Hotel Henson set. There, competition are holed up for the show’s 8-7 days duration, with new episodes scheduled for Monday, Sept. 19, Sept. 26, and over and above.
Except, that is, their baked merchandise are unsuccessful to woo the judges, in which they will have to “check out” and just take the elevator to the 13th flooring — from which they’ll in no way return, producers wrote. Impending episodes contain titles these as “Croquem-boots” and “Maze Madness.”
Mercer, a Texas native who enjoys baking at drag-impressed cooking occasions, has started generating a identify for himself regionally with his drag persona and delicious baked items (see instagram.com/zac_misscarrie for far more), but the present has thrust him into an even brighter spotlight.
The trail was blazed in some techniques by The Pie Queen, Chocolatina, Queen of the Dessert, a Denverite who has appeared on NBC, Foods Network, and other shows. Colorado’s spooky, boundary-pushing drag queens have also ruled Tv set in current many years with Denver-primarily based champs on “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” such as “Queen of Halloween” Yvie Oddly (2019) and Willow Tablet (2022).
Examine out the spooky treats, and stream the clearly show for totally free (with adverts), at foodnetwork.com/reveals/halloween-baking-championship.
Subscribe to our new meals publication, Stuffed, to get Denver foods and consume news sent straight to your inbox.