Halloween Baking Championship recap: Season 10 premiere features broken glass and bubbling sweets

Halloween Baking Championship returns for its tenth season on Food Network! If you missed watching the episode live last night, you'll be pleased to know it is currently streaming on Max.

Judges Carla Hall, Zac Young, and Stephanie Boswell return, along with host John Henson. This year, the ten competing bakers will bake various sweets in Henson's creepy laboratory as they compete for the Champion title and $25,000.

Without further ado, let's get into a rundown of the episode, highlighting the challenges, desserts, and premiere elimination.

Thriller Challenge: Lab Glass Desserts

This week's Thriller Challenge featured an exciting twist as the winner receives complete immunity from the Killer Challenge, which ends with an elimination.

For season 10's first Thriller Challenge, the bakers are tasked with creating broken lab glass desserts using sugar glass to create sweet and scary lab disasters. Everyone gets assigned some kind of glass item that you would find in a laboratory, like beakers, test tubes, specimen slides, and more.

• Aaron, Beaker: Flourless chocolate cake with cacao nib mousse and blood orange sauce
• Carly, Test Tube: Coconut cake with raspberry cheesecake filling and lime curd
• Hollie, Petri Dish: Pistachio and cherry cheesecake with roasted pistachio crust and white chocolate ganache
• JL, Pipette: Molasses sandwich cookie with spiced ganache filling
• Joel, Chemical Bottle: Chocolate fennel torte with candied kumquats and pear gelée
• Lillian, Glass Cabinet: Chocolate peanut butter miso cookie
• Manny, Funnel: Shortbread sandwich cookie with oozing lime curd and citrus crumble
• Megan, Specimen Slide: Mini maple bacon bundt cakes with bacon Swiss meringue
• Santiago, Light Bulb: Deconstructed sweet potato pie
• Thierry, Flask: Hazelnut pear and fennel financier (a financier is a French almond cake flavored with brown butter!) with fennel white chocolate mousse and fennel and pear slime

The judges select Aaron as the winner for this season's first Thriller Challenge, meaning he will have immunity in the Killer Challenge and cannot be eliminated regardless of what he bakes. However, he can win again, meaning he shouldn't just give up and phone it in.

Killer Challenge: (and Elimination)

The big Killer Challenge for the premiere tasks the bakers with making bubbling desserts inspired by the lab's toxic sludge. They can make bubbles out of whatever they want, such as boba pearls, sugar bubbles, or even by adding dry ice for some cool effects.

By the end of the Killer Challenge, someone will win, and someone will be eliminated and hoisted into the cryo chamber.

• Aaron: Sweet potato, coconut, and chai tart with boba bubbles
• Carly: Blood orange pomegranate pistachio tart with pomegranate curds and blood orange mascarpone mousse
• Hollie: Toasted sesame chiffon cake with black tea pastry cream and boba bubbles
• JL: Chocolate cake with hazelnut crunch and chocolate Mousse with raspberry gelée bubbles
• Joel: Passion fruit and mango mousse with coconut lime sponge and puffed rice sesame crunch with tapioca sludge bubbles
• Manny: Pâte sucrée (sweet, crisp, and tender pastry crust) with chocolate raspberry mousse and fresh raspberry sauce
• Lillian: Red velvet cake filled with Brigadeiro (a popular Brazilian confection) sauce with peach praline and boba bubbles
• Megan: Pumpkin cake with sweet potato filling and white chocolate bubbles
• Samantha: Coconut sponge with lime curd, coconut mousse, and coconut cocktail bonbons
• Thierry: Chocolate coconut cake with coconut cream, chocolate mousse, and isomalt bubbles

Joel's delicious toxic waste dish won him the competition, but sadly, Samantha gets sent home because of the disjointed nature of her toxic barrel treat and lack of actual dessert on the plate.

New episodes of Halloween Baking Championship air weekly on Monday nights at 9 p.m. ET on the Food Network. They also stream on Max shortly after they air.

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