San Jose baker to contend on Foodstuff Network’s Xmas Cookie Problem

Just as a lot of associations begin nowadays, the very first contact San Jose baker Elizabeth Medina experienced with the Food stuff Community was when their reps slid into her DMs. (That is achieving out through direct information on social media for any non-Instagrammers out there.)

The concept? Would Medina, who operates her possess cookie-decorating company, Sugar Queen Bakery, be fascinated in competing on the network’s “Christmas Cookie Obstacle“? Now in its seventh period, the Food Community exhibit pits four individuals against every other each episode to total cookie-associated baking worries and impress judges Ree Drummond and Eddie Jackson.

Medina will be up to bat — or somewhat, up to (cookie bat)ter — Dec. 7.

Medina was hesitant at first. Getting viewed the clearly show, she knew that one particular of the worries involves developing a a few-dimensional cookie framework, but she’d by no means even designed a gingerbread house. Most of her buyers, right after all, like her art — royal icing on vanilla sugar cookies — in 2D sort.

But she went for it, and as she went by the audition approach, completing challenges and practising at home, she attained self-assurance.

“it was definitely fun to challenge myself to check out to do the structured cookies,” she suggests. She experimented with different edible glues to see what would dry quickly when aiding the construction hold its shape.

Medina, who will work at Stanford by day and runs her cookie-decorating company at night and on weekends, has been baking because she was four several years outdated, but did not begin baking skillfully till about eight many years back, when she produced custom made cookies for a friend’s engagement bash.

“From there, it grew and grew,” she claims. “I started off carrying out it far more and obtained superior and much better.”

While she simply cannot talk about how the challenge went — no spoilers listed here, you are going to have to view to uncover out — she did say that the time allotted for just about every challenge seemed to fly by.

You can catch Medina’s baking general performance on the Food Community and HBO Max on Dec. 7, where she’ll contend versus three other bakers from the U.S. and Canada in an episode titled “Xmas on the Road.”

Like other episodes, this just one has two problems. In the initially, bakers are questioned to make a two-sided Christmas postcard cookie, with the cheapest scoring competitor facing elimination. For the next problem, the remaining bakers contend to see who can make the coolest 3-dimensional Xmas camper van from outdoorsy substances like granola bars, fruit leather, almond butter and oatmeal. The winner gets $10,000 and a golden ornament prize.