Rita Adams baked 50 sheets of gingerbread in preparation for “Holiday Baking Championship: Gingerbread Showdown.” That’s a lot of dough not to bring home the dough, the $10,000 prize.
But even though she wasn’t the winner of her episode of the Food Network competition, the Ringgold, Georgia, baker acquitted herself admirably. Not only was she featured in a Wayfair commercial during the episode, but her gingerbread tableau was included in the highlight reel the network used in its commercials promoting the show.
“I had no idea going into it what would happen,” Adams said. “But now that I know, I’m ready to go again. I really enjoyed the experience.”
Adams’ day job is product specialist for Shaw Industries. Her moonlighting gig is gingerbread creations, which she has been baking since 2001.
“It’s something I had always been interested in but just didn’t have the space to attempt until we bought this house in Ringgold in 2001,” she says.
Working as a team with her husband, Monte, Adams entered her first competition, the Atlanta Festival of Trees, that same year. She won first place in that festival the next year, as well as the next three years.
With four consecutive wins in Atlanta under her belt, she set her sights on the granddaddy of gingerbread contests: the National Gingerbread Competition held at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, North Carolina. Her detailed gingerbread house with an antique car outside won her fourth place in 2007.
It was through the national event that Food Network producers contacted her.
“Food Network reaches out to Grove Park Inn for contestants. They actually contacted me last year, but I couldn’t do it. So this year they called back in June.”
Season 2 of “Holiday Baking Championship: Gingerbread Showdown” was filmed over four days in Knoxville during September. This season’s judges were Carla Hall, Stephanie Boswell and Kalen Allen. Adams’ episode debuted on Nov. 21, but is in reruns through this month.
Two weeks before taping, the three baking teams were told the episode theme: “Jack Frost Ruins Santa’s Vacation.” Contestants had two weeks to make all their gingerbread at home before transporting it to Knoxville.
“I baked six hours a night each day for two weeks and 12 hours on weekends,” says Adams. Adams’ recipe is for a construction-grade batter that is “made to be sturdy and not eaten.”
Her assistant, Linda Monroe of Sautee Nacoochee, Georgia, was in charge of the tasting treat, which had to be incorporated into the gingerbread display. Unfortunately, the three judges had trouble cutting into Monroe’s confection.
In the episode, the three teams were given 10 hours to build a gingerbread tableau that was 4 feet square, 24 inches tall, 90% edible and 70% gingerbread. Also, it had to have a motorized feature.
Food Network competitions always show contestants frantically scrambling in the last hour to finish their work. Adams shared a little of what viewers didn’t see after she packed her 50 sheets of gingerbread in bubble wrap and headed to Knoxville.
“We were there on a Saturday through Tuesday. Saturday is nothing but interviews with producers. Sunday there are more interviews and team interviews. It’s a very long, slow process to get the best content for filming.
“Monday we start the houses and have six hours on camera,” she says.
But before that, competitors have to put everything they have brought from home out on a table so producers can see it. Once checked, contestants are told they have to make one of everything on display to prove they made it.
“It takes up every bit of your time. You can’t fudge making it either,” she adds. “If they see something they don’t like, they make you redo it. In my case, I had made a lot of characters. My assistant could not duplicate them so I only got to put half out.”
Adams says she started building her gingerbread house on Monday, since it was one of her display’s main pieces.
All materials had to remain in the workshop overnight. Frustratingly, when Adams arrived on Tuesday she found that humidity overnight had made her gingerbread pieces swell, causing difficulty in assembling. That slowed her down as she had to gently drill and enlarge a section in her operational Ferris wheel to make the pieces fit. The drilling pulled a wire loose so the Ferris wheel did not turn electronically but did rotate when turned manually by hand.
By the time Adams got her pieces assembled, she had one hour left to create her characterizations of Santa and Jack Frost.
Despite these setbacks, the tableau was whimsically charming. Judge Hall declared her display “looked like a postcard.”
Her advice to other bakers who enjoy watching Food Network competitions: “Go into it with an open mind and don’t be afraid of disappointment. I never go into a competition thinking I’m going to win. But you should be proud of your work and what you’ve accomplished.”
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