Local baker skates through to TV show finale

MOULTONBOROUGH — Jen Clifford, the local baker who worried that she’d be kicked off during the first episode of the Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship, has made it to the final episode, one of three bakers remaining to compete for the $25,000 prize.

But it was only by the skin of her teeth that she survived the penultimate episode, which aired on Monday night. Clifford had established herself as the clear frontrunner through previous contests, as judges consistently preferred her creations over those of bakers with more impressive resumes. With one episode left before the finale, though, Clifford found herself at the other end of the ladder.

Things started out fair enough for Clifford during the episode. For the preliminary challenge, she made a flourless chocolate torte with an orange liqueur-crème anglaise. Judges liked her dessert, but awarded the preliminary win, and an advantage in the elimination challenge, to competitor Sarah Wallace, who manages a bakery in Boston.

Wallace’s advantage was a doozy. In the elimination, competitors were given two hours to bake a cheesecake topped with an edible skating rink. Wallace got to choose the crusts – and not just the crust that she would use. Wallace also got to assign specific crusts to the other contestants. She gave the hardest crust, oat, to Clifford.

“I have never once made cheesecake with an oat crust,” Cliffod said in the episode. Then, with feigned rage, “Darn you, Sarah!” But Clifford turned to her family for strength. She thought of her daughter, Maddison, who loves to skate, and made a fondant replica of her 13-year-old to perch on the edge of the cake.

Clifford put oats in a food processor, along with brown sugar and pecans, to make her crust, then turned to her cheesecake. She chose to make a key lime cheesecake, which turned out to be a consequential choice. In every elimination challenge, the producers of the show spin a curveball into the kitchen when bakers are halfway through their challenge, and this episode's surprise was hot cocoa mix. Bakers had to incorporate hot cocoa powder into their dessert, which isn’t exactly a complement to key lime.

“(Then) it comes to me. I’m going to take the hot cocoa mix and make hot cocoa cookie trees,” Clifford said. “I really want to win this for my daughter.”

It turned out to be a winning combination. She filled the coca cookies with white chocolate and peppermint cream, to make an upscale version of an Oreo.

“It goes surprisingly well, weirdly, with the cheesecake,” said judge Lorraine Pascale. Less successful was the oat crust, which each judge noted hadn’t cooked long enough and was chewy. When judges were preparing to announce which of the four remaining bakers would be sent home, they called Clifford and culinary instructor Geoffrey Blount to stand before their table.

Clifford’s saving grace was that Blount had topped his cake with a meringue which hadn’t yet set, and the judges determined that a wet meringue was a greater transgression than a chewy crust.

Speaking by phone on Tuesday morning, Clifford said she couldn’t enjoy watching Monday night’s episode, which had been pre-recorded, with her family. “Total PTSD, I’ve been dreading this episode,” she said.

“Being on the bottom two, not a good feeling. It made it even worse to go against Geoff, I look up to him personally and professionally. He’s a good person. Watching him go home, it was almost like seeing my dad go home,” Clifford said.

When she heard judges announce that she would stay on for the final, she said she was, “relieved, but absolutely shocked. I was overwhelmed, there were so many things going on that day.”

She said she was “really thrown for a loop” when Wallace gave her the oat crust. She doesn’t hold it against Wallace – it is a competition, after all – she just had never heard of using oats for a pastry crust. Then, to have to use hot cocoa mix when she was already too far into a key lime bake to back out, she said it felt like the rug was pulled out from underneath her.

“I felt defeated before it was even over,” she said. “I needed to get out of that mindset and say, think about this, focus and get the challenge done.”

“I had to work with what I was given and do the best that I could. No professional I know can make, bake, cool and decorate a cheesecake in two hours. It was a difficult thing. In hindsight, I should have done a no-bake cheesecake,” she said.

She finished her cheesecake and, though its crust was chewy and her fondant daughter was not as adorable and the real version, it was just good enough to punch her ticket for the finale, which will air on Monday night.

Clifford, who's the head baker at Cup and Crumb in Moultonborough, baked a key lime cheesecake to sell at the bakery Tuesday morning, but one with her preferred crust: graham cracker, gingersnaps and coconut. She also made four dozen of the cocoa cookies, which sold out by 8 a.m. She planned to make more for Wednesday morning.

It was hard for her to watch on Monday night, she said. She feels the weight of her hometown watching, and hopes to better represent Moultonborough during the final episode.

“I’m just really hoping that I did my town proud, put my best foot forward and everyone is feeling proud of what I’ve done. That’s my main goal at this point.” Clifford, who has said she’s more at home hiding in her kitchen than on national television and has found it uncomfortable at times to be a local celebrity. But with just one episode to go, she said she’s going to enjoy the last of her time in the (key) limelight.

“At this point, I’m going to savor it. It’s kind of bittersweet. There’s one left, I’m probably not going to get the chance to do something like this ever again,” she said.