By Claudia Loucks
Geneseo Current
Abigail and Kenneth Wolf didn’t just “survive,” the fifth episode of Food Network’s TV Show “Baking Championship: Next Gen,” series, which aired on Monday, Feb. 2, the brother and sister team placed second out of the seven teams in competition.
Theme of the recent show was “Dessert Imposters,” and was a favorite for the young bakers. Each team was challenged with creating a main dessert imposter and two side dishes.
The Wolf siblings received avocado toast and chose to make sausage patties and a parfait.
Abigail crafted Mango Pound Cake and used two-toned coconut buttercream for the avocado.
On top, she added a white chocolate egg white with a mango curd egg yolk.
Kenneth made a lemon shortbread cookie that was used for the granola in the parfait. He made coconut whipped cream and layered the whipped cream, shortbread, and raspberries to form the parfait.
His mother, Erica Wolf, shared that the recent episode “really highlighted Kenneth.”
Judges and hosts for the competition are Duff Goldman and Kardea Brown, and regarding the Feb. 2 show, Erica Wolf said, “Duff loved what Kenneth had put together.”
In the midst of the assignment, the teams were given a twist, which was to add coffee to one of their deserts. Abigail’s and Kenneth’s final imposter was a mocha brownie formed into a sausage patty.
The theme for next week’s competition, Feb. 9, is Cream Puff Friendship Bracelets.
The young bakers are the children of Dan and Erica Wolf, and the family, which includes sister Lucy, live on a farm in Geneseo.
At the conclusion of each show, one team has to say goodbye, and having seen the final minutes of the Feb. 2 segment, I noticed the comradery that exists between the young people, and when the team that says “good bye,” starts to exit, the other groups gather around them and exchange hugs.
I asked the Wolf children about how difficult it must be to say “good bye” to the young friends they have made while filming the shows, and Abigail responded, “We watched pairs of kids we had gotten to know well get eliminated. We made sure to let them know that they are still incredible bakers and that not every young baker gets a chance to compete like this.”
Kenneth Wolf added, “It was hard when our friends got eliminated, and it’s hard to watch it on tv again. We met some lifelong friends.”
There are six teams remaining in the final four episodes of the series, and even though the identity of the champions is still kept a secret, the winning team will be awarded $25,000 and the title of Next Generation: Baking Champions. Three teams will be featured in the finale segment of the series.
Each episode of “Baking Championship: Next Gen” will be available to stream the following day on HBO Max and Discovery.”
The show also can be viewed on YouTube TV and Dish.
