'Nailed It!' Season 4 Episode 2 sees the bakers try their luck with '90s-inspired treats
The second episode of Nailed It! is dedicated to the good ol' '90s. Fortune Feimster joined Nicole Byer and Jacque Torres as a guest judge for the episode. David Simmons Jr., Crystal Roman, and Whitney Martin went head to head in this episode.
David talked about learning baking from his mother and expressed a desire to win the competition for her. Crystal is from Florida and she admitted to being a good cook and a baker and her motivation towards winning the episode are her children. She's feisty and mentioned that she didn't come all this way from Florida to lose. Whitney is a new mom and she seemed determined to win the competition so that she could set up a college fund for her 1-year-old son, Sawyer. Well, the 90s theme certainly got everyone excited as Jacques even broke out into a gavotte dance.
For the first challenge, the home bakers were asked to recreate ice cream cakes. For this, the bakers had three choices - a chocolate-vanilla girl boombox cake, a blinged-out cinnamon raisin and vanilla hip-hop boombox ice cream cake and a vanilla and strawberry boyband boombox ice cream cake. The challenge was interesting since the bakers would be using liquid nitrogen for the cake.
The challenge began with Crystal running around the kitchen, confused, looking for stuff. Whitney, on the other hand, decided to drop the chocolate from her chocolate-vanilla cake that she was asked to create and the judges took note of it. All of the bakers were very happy with the ice creams they had whipped up but when it was time to bring the cakes out of the oven it was a whole new story. David's cakes came out in crumbles as he'd missed greasing the pans. Whitney faced a similar situation with her cake and Crystal who was having a hard time initially was the only one whose cake looked perfect.
The time given to the bakers for the challenge was over and now it was tasting time. Jacques noted that his cake looked like it was out in 90 degrees temperature but tasted great. Crystal's cake was almost quite there, visually. The judges loved the ice cream but what drove it home was the flavor of the cake which she then revealed that it's coming from the raisins and cinnamon. The judges left her work station mighty impressed and arrived at Whitney's station. On tasting, Jacque gave her an important feedback that it's always important to add a surprise element to the recipes one creates. They then asked her about the missing chocolate from her chocolate vanilla cake. She turned it around saying since the judges are looking for a surprise, this is it, getting vanilla while they expected chocolate. After considering everything, Crystal was declared the winner for the first round and she was presented a boombox as a gift, how symbolic!
For the second round, the bakers had to create a two-tier confetti cake inspired by the 90s, replete with all elements symbolic of the era - bright colors, rollerblades, fanny packs, teen magazines along with the nailed it sign in 90's inspired graffiti font.
David had a lot of difficulty in the previous episode but this time around, he mentioned that he was confident "as it's just two cakes on top of each other". Crystal was nervous but at the same time she was determined to "bring it". She was listening carefully when the judges had advised Whitney to add surprise elements to one's cooking and she decided to grate peppermint into her cake batter which the judges noted that it could be a good move. While the judges were impressed with what the former was doing, they were worried about what Whitney was doing at her work station. They noted that she was making four cakes. Two confetti cakes and two bubblegum flavored cakes and the bubblegum batter looked an unappetizing red color and they regretted advising her to add the element of surprise to her cooking after observing that she had taken it way too far.
For the graffiti sign, the bakers had to use edible paper and both Whitney and Crystal were having trouble with it but the former was thinking quick on her feet and decided to use alphabet cookies to make the sign. It did mean deviating from the recipe but was also a smart thing to do.
While David's cake looked like a mess, Crystal put up a neat looking cake even though it missed a couple of elements. The judges observed that Whitney used a lot of readymade elements to put together her creation, for example, the alphabet cookies and oreo cookies for rollerblades wheels but she had also added a Tamagotchi to the creation as a personal touch and the judges lauded her for it. It was time for tasting and David's cake failed to impress with parts of it being dry and parts of it being too moist. Crystal's cake was received well with the judges applauding her for adding peppermint. Also, the confetti was very visible in her cake and that impressed the judges. Whitney's cake was too heavy on the bubblegum flavor and Nicole even said that it was "confuddling" her brain.
After the tasting, Jacques mentioned that the cake that they were asked to present had a lot of elements to it and they've decided that the winner will be based on who's creation looked the best and in a surprising turn of events, Whitney was crowned the winner of the challenge and she walked home with $10,000
'Nailed It!' Season 4 is now streaming on Netflix.
