'Nailed It!' Season 4 Episode 3: Cheri wins big as bakers struggle with chocolate eggs and Sphinx cake
In the third episode of 'Nailed It!', titled 'Indiana Fails and the Temple of Slop', three amateur bakers were up for a chance to discover hidden treasures but only one would walk away with a treasure chest of $10,000.
The first baker was Cheri Kelley from Nevada. She mentioned that she has always been a baker but after retirement, she spends a lot of her time, baking with her grandchildren. She wanted to win the competition for her granddaughter Riley who she mentioned would be very excited to see the trophy.
Next up was Caroline Stapleton, a lawyer, and mother of one. She's expecting baby no. 2 in a few months and coming into the competition, her aim was to turn from a banking lawyer to a 'baking lawyer'.
The third home baker was JJ Woodward, an accountant from California with a lot of love and passion for 'cryptozoology', meaning he's obsessed with the study and search for legendary animals like Bigfoot. JJ admitted that he loves baking Bigfoot shaped cakes. He doesn't describe himself as a big baker but mentioned that he would like to win the competition for all Bigfoot lovers in the world.
Gemma Stafford returned to the show, joining Nicole and Jacques for the episode.
For the first challenge, the bakers had to recreate chocolate hatching eggs. They were made out of 100% chocolate and popping out from the egg was an animal-shaped cake pop. The bakers had to each pick their choice from a tiny turtle, a baby chick and a newborn chameleon. Also, the eggs must had a special secret, all of them filled with a snack mix and buried deep inside was a precious tiny treasure — a small gold foil covered chocolate coin and Nicole told contestants that she needed that treasure element to be present in all creations.
With 45 minutes in hand, Caroline mentioned that she is usually very good at time management but thinking too fast under pressure is her undoing. Cheri, with one too many molds in her hands, looked confused and spent a lot of time figuring out her first steps. Nicole joked that she can bet all her money on Cheri for not finishing a thing. All three home bakers were freewheeling in the competition with none of them measuring the ingredients they were using.
At the end of the challenge, the judges observed that all the three creations were fairly decent flavorwise but they declared JJ the winner because his creation came very close to emulating what the judges had asked from him.
For the second challenge, it was a three-layer, Buried Sphinx cake inspired by the Sphinx of Giza that the home bakers had to recreate.
Winner of the first challenge, JJ, was seen struggling in the second round. He forgot putting eggs in his cake mix and added way too much milk and Nicole mentioned that his cake mix looked like "liquid stool". Cheri, on the other hand, used condensed milk instead of fresh milk and the judges were worried that her buttercream would end up being too sweet.
In spite of knowing that her cake has cooked completely, Caroline decided to leave it in the oven for an extra 5 minute and Jacques pointed out that this is one mistake that results in a dry cake. With the last couple of minutes left on the clock, the bakers started to put all elements together. While Cheri was seen frosting the cake with her hands, JJ missed putting the chocolate mummies inside the cake, which was a very important element.
Time was up and the judges walked over to each baker's work station to visually examine the cakes. The judges noted that Cheri had nailed it with the detailing bit in her creation and all the features and the contouring of the face of the statue bore a fair resemblance to what she was asked to recreate. Caroline and JJ's cakes had melted and looked like a goopy mess.
Cheri's creation managed to outdo the other two during the taste test as well and she walked home with the treasure and the trophy at the end of the challenge.
'Nailed It!' Season 4 is now streaming on Netflix.