'Nailed it!' Season 4 Episode 1: Home bakers challenged to whip up literature-inspired sweet treats
Nailed It! Season 4 is back on Netflix with chef and judges Jacques Torres and Nicole Byer. Competing in the first episode of the new season were home bakers, Gail DePadre, Gregory Gardner and Andrew Fischer. Gail is a grandmother with seven grandkids and she wanted to win the competition for her grandkids. Gregory works in customer service but loves to bake and he puts a lot of love in all his baking for he wants people who bite into his treats to think "ooh, that's bursting" and he was confident that his stint on the show will be 'bursting'. The last of the lot is Andrew Fischer from Minnesota. He loves baking for his co-workers but admits that his baking experiments don't turn always taste the best. Joining Nicole and Jacques was comedian and actor Matt Walsh
For the first challenge that is Baker's Choice, the challenge was to recreate Shakespearean stained glass window cookies with the Bard, Romeo and Juliet cookies and the home bakers had to pick one each which they would later recreate. The stained glass effect had to be created by melting hard candy and the main element required to design the character cookies was royal icing. With just 60 minutes on the clock to present the cookies along with the glass windows, the contestants were trying hard to figure out their steps. While Gregory and Fischer were having a bit of a hard time, Gail seemed to have everything in control. However, she later realizes that she forgot the stained glass window and it was too late to create one. At the end of 60 minutes, the judges showed up to their work stations and after taking a look and tasting all three cookies, the judges declare Fischer as the winner.
For the second challenge, all three home bakers had to recreate Moby Dick's pop up book cake. The challenge was to recreate the battle depicting Ahab's obsessive hunt for the great white whale, Moby Dick. They were given 90 minutes to create this masterpiece that was made up of buttercream, fondant, modeling chocolate and blue velvet cake.
All three contestants yet again put in all their best efforts to replicate the cake. Gail was more careful this time, Gregory was struggling while creating the whale and Fischerlooked like he was having a smooth run. At one point, Gail realized that she's running a little behind than her opponents and decided to use the "Melville" button where she stopped Andrew and Gregory in their tracks for three whole minutes and tried catching up to them in this time. It was an advantage given to her by Nicole for failing badly in the first round.
With less than three minutes left on the clock, Nicole alerted all three home bakers that their creations are missing Ahab's figurine and his boat as well leaving all of rushing to add those elements.
Yet again, Fischer managed to whip up the best looking as well as better tasting cake amongst the three and walked away with the grand prize of $10k at the end of the challenge.
'Nailed It' is now streaming on Netflix.
