[Jonathan] It's the scariest time of the year.
Which means the biggest, the spookiest
Halloween competition is back.
Let's get ready to battle!
Teams of cake, pumpkin and sugar artists
must work together to bring their mind-blowing designs
and tasty-yet-terrifying treats to life.
My God!
I will never forget this dessert. You are twisted.
[Jonathan] In the end, only one team will walk away
with the title of Halloween Wars champions
and the grand prize of $25,000.
[laughing]
Halloween Wars starts now.
[thunder rumbling]
Welcome to Halloween Wars.
[contestants cheering]
I'm Jonathan Bennett, the new caretaker of this haunted house,
located here at 13 Cemetery Lane.
And joining me are expert judges
Aarti Sequeira and Shinmin Li.
And this season, the haunted house is hard at work
conjuring up every creepy challenge
delivered directly to me.
Do not make this house mad. Trust me.
[woman screaming]
See what I mean?
And if you survive all the scary, spooky
and gruesome challenges that our house has in store,
one team will leave with $25,000.
Here are the haunted house rules.
There's nine very competitive teams here.
Over the next three weeks,
three teams will be eliminated.
Only the best will move forward.
One we have our final sinister six teams,
the main competition begins.
But only one team can take home the win
and all its ghostly glory.
Ooh!
The three teams competing in the first qualifying round are
Pumpkin Up The Volume,
-Sweet Lunatics... -Yay!
...and Trick or Sweet.
All right. Here we go.
The rest of you can go.
For now.
-[woman 1] Bye. Good luck. -[woman 2] Good luck, guys.
Teams, get ready to feel like a kid again.
Well, a kid that's scared of monsters
hiding in the closet or under the bed.
Oh!
Looks like the house has something for us.
Oh, no!
It's my childhood teddy bear.
But where's the rest of him?
-[woman] Oh, no. -[Jonathan] Oh.
There's a postcard.
Must be your Small Scare challenge.
[screaming]
I did not see that coming.
For this Small Scare, we want you to create
the perfect stuffed cuddle buddy
that has become unhinged.
-[Lisa] Oh, gosh. -Ooh!
[Jonathan] Show us what it looks like
and what kind of trouble our furry friend might cause.
The winning team gets the advantage
of first pick of the pumpkin in the next round.
You've only got 45 minutes.
And your time starts...
now!
All right. Awesome, guys. Here we go.
I love teddy bears. Let's do teddy bears.
No, no. Teddy bear is too common.
I feel like we should do something a little bit more unique
-and a little bit different. -Rabbit?
-[Corinda] No. -[Nils] Uh, hippo?
What about an octopus?
-Octopus. -Okay, okay.
-[Corinda] Yeah. -Yeah, let's start that out.
Our team is Trick or Sweet.
My name is Nils Rowland.
I'm doing the sugar and the chocolate work.
Our pumpkin carver is Dennis Franzen
and our cake artist is Corinda Baum.
[Nils] So what's he going to be doing that's evil?
Maybe Octavio here...
-Octavio, I like it. -...is sick of having the kids pull
on all of his tentacles,
-his arms and his legs, things like that. -Okay.
And he finally decided he's gonna retaliate.
[Nils] Octavio, the octopus,
is gonna bust out of the toy bin,
knocks the piggy bank off.
And then he realizes that most people get caught by fingerprints
so he's like, "Okay. Well, I got to get rid of my tentacles."
So he finds a knife, and he starts cutting his tentacles off.
And it's really pretty gruesome in a way.
So, what did you guys have when you were growing up?
I had a bunny.
-What did you have? -I had a pig.
We are Sweet Lunatics.
My name is Lisa Pak. I am the cake artist.
Our pumpkin carver is Dean Murray.
And our sugar artist is Lori Winton.
What's the evil? What's the mischief?
-The bunny. -He's gone bad.
-The bunny is gone-- -He is pissed because the Piggy came.
[Lisa] That's a great idea.
[Lori] And he, he tears the pig apart.
[Lisa] Bunny Jack is upset that the child replaced Jack with Piggy,
so Jack tore Piggy apart.
-You know what, I've got a great idea. -Yes.
What about a monkey taking revenge
on one of the new stuffed animals?
-Ooh, I love that idea. -Right.
We are Pumpkin Up The Volume.
My name is Timmy Norman, and I am a cake artist.
Our pumpkin carver is Drew Smith.
And our sugar artist is Vanessa Greeley.
So we wanna do, like, the elephant, like, torn apart?
-[Drew] Yeah. -[Timmy] Some stuffing up here.
[Drew] Yeah.
[Timmy] This Small Scare,
our stuffed monkey is gonna be ripping apart
this new elephant that's arrived,
and stuffing is gonna be going everywhere.
It's so important that we get through this week
and we stay in the competition.
-Let's do this. -We got this.
[Dennis] Nils, you think this is a good size for the pumpkin?
You like the edge right here?
-[Nils] I like... Yeah, I like the imperfections, too. -Like that? Okay.
[Nils] Dennis is doing the main body of the octopus.
He's got a pumpkin and squash.
This cake pop dough is really cool.
[Nils] Corinda is doing the octopus's cake arms.
[Corinda] So, I'm making, kind of, like, sausages.
[Nils] And the crumbled-up cake
will be the stuffing coming out, where he cuts himself.
[Corinda] Gonna get fondant.
[Nils] I'm doing the sugar and the chocolate work.
For sugar, I'm doing the knife and some coins and the piggy bank.
All right, guys, I am gonna dump this
chocolate ink spot on the board.
-[Nils] Okay. -Okay, I think this is ready to set in there.
-[Corinda] Should I put him right in the middle? -[Nils] Yeah, I would.
All right, he's set.
[Dean] What colors are you gonna make the rabbit?
[Lisa] White and, like, a tan.
And I'm gonna dirty him up.
I will be doing the rice cereal and fondant for the bunny.
I love dessert so I went from art school
to French culinary institute.
And then I just combined everything, and here I am.
My goal is to do cakes full-time for my kids.
I want my kids to know no matter what they do,
if they keep going for it,
that they could accomplish anything.
I am pulling sugar for the bunny's tie.
[Lisa] Our sugar artist, Lori, will be doing eyes for the pig,
and eyes, teeth and bowties for the bunny.
I'm thinking a nice pink color for the pig.
[Lisa] Dean will be making the pig,
which is all butternut squash.
[Dean] Okay. So I think I'm gonna do the scratched eye on this side.
[Lisa] Yeah. You have enough time?
[Dean] I got enough time.
-You just make sure you got enough time. -[Lisa] All right.
[Drew] Oh.
I love that pumpkin size. That's gonna be great.
The base of our cake is gonna be a elephant that's been torn open.
Drew is using pumpkin and butternut squash.
I'm rolling out some fondant.
I'm gonna wrap this around the body,
and then I'll make some to go around the head.
The monkey is gonna be all cake and rice cereal covered in fondant.
Vanessa is gonna make our sugar eyes and a knife that's made out of sugar.
Just gonna dip lollipops in black isomalt
for the eyes so it cools off quick.
Dip, dip, dip.
I'm gonna add the head on there and get that going.
I press in with a brush to add some texture.
Oh, guys, this is gonna look cool.
[Jonathan] All right, the first Small Scare of the season.
-[Shinmin] So excited. -[Aarti] Very scary.
I'm so excited to see what they bring on right now.
I think that this challenge is a really good opportunity
for them to show off a lot of their skills.
[Jonathan] What are you guys looking for?
-[Shinmin] A stuffed animal that is still cute. -[Aarti] Mm-hm.
-But then, menacing, right? When you take a closer look. -[Aarti] Yeah.
[Shinmin] I want something that a child would look at and go,
"Oh, I would like to take that."
-"No, I wouldn't." -[Aarti] Yeah.
Stuffed animals are not open to interpretation.
So, if you creation doesn't look like a teddy bear,
-we're gonna know it immediately. -[Jonathan] Yeah.
[Lori] I'm breaking up rice noodles.
And we're gonna put them in some hot oil.
And they fry up instantly.
And it's the stuffing that the bunny has torn out of the pig.
[Dean] Imma start frying some of these.
Oh, look, they're frying noodles to make stuffing.
[Aarti] That's really innovative...
-[Shinmin] I love that. -...and so much easier than the spun sugar
-we usually see as stuffing. -So much easier.
I'm going to the board after I get these done.
-[Lisa] All right. -[Jonathan] You have twenty minutes!
[Lisa] Oh, my gosh!
-[Corinda] Holy smokes. -Holy smokes is right.
Guys, we need to get these two characters done, or it's a fail.
[Corinda] The only reason why we're covering the pumpkin with fondant is
I don't think we're gonna have enough time
to, kind of, get that coloring to match exactly.
I mean, we're gonna wing it. We're gonna see what happens.
Trunk's out right there.
Um, let's airbrush it before we place it on.
[Drew] Great. All right.
Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving, keep moving.
Yeah. Sounds good, man.
I need the eyes for the pig as well.
So, we have a button, but the holes aren't there.
So now I'm gonna use a heat tool.
And it's like a soldering iron, but for food.
[Dean] How are you gonna attach 'em? You got--
[Lori] We got the edible glue.
[Dean] Will edible glue stick to the pumpkin?
We'll find out.
[Dean] The other one I need to put down here,
but we need that thread in here.
[Lori] Okay, it's sticking.
-[Dean] I'll do it. I'll do it. -[Lori] Okay.
-[Aarti] Oh, no. -Oh, no. The eyes aren't sticking.
It's not sticking, Lori. It just slides right off.
Oh.
[Lori] Ugh.
-[Lori] Ugh. -[Aarti gasps] Oh, no.
Oh, I hope they figure this out.
I was so looking forward to button eyes.
There's something so cute and creepy at the same time...
-Yes, yes. -...about button eyes.
[Dean] Oh, what do we got that can work?
-Pumpkin pig is 75% water, so it's really slippery. -[Aarti] Mm-hm.
[Dean] I need skewers.
Do you have small skewers anywhere?
Maybe I'll just do it with this skewer that we're stirring with.
[Lisa] Oh, you got the eyes in. Thank you.
[Dean] Pig's away.
Five minutes. You have five minutes to go!
Hurry up. Yeah, go, go, go.
[Timmy] Adding some cotton.
Some more stuffing to our monkey.
[Vanessa] The guts of the elephant.
[Timmy] It's made out of royal icing
that Vanessa microwaved for just a few seconds.
It looks really soft, even though it's, like, really crumbly.
Very fragile.
No one breathe.
Yeah, no one breathes. No one shakes the monkey.
-[Corinda] Where's that knife? -[Nils] It's coming.
[Dennis] All right, I'm just gonna throw a little shadow here.
You do the eyebrows.
-[Nils] Okay. -[Corinda] Careful, careful.
-[Nils] Keep it right there. -[Dennis] Okay. Right there it is.
[Nils] Okay. Just let it sit for a hot minute.
-[Dennis] All right. -[Nils] Not that we got a hot minute, but--
-[Dennis] Yeah. -Teams, you have one minute left!
-[Timmy] One minute. -[Vanessa] Uh, torch, torch, torch.
[Timmy] Torch it, torch it.
-[Timmy] Good. -[Vanessa] Go.
Cold spray, cold spray.
[Timmy] I'm not moving.
-Stop. -[Vanessa] Yeah.
-Yes! -[Vanessa grunts]
[Dean] We have a pig, we need a bunny.
[Lisa] I'm coming.
-[Dean] Let's pull that bunny. -My ears.
That bunny's gotta come closer.
[Lisa] Yeah. He's gotta come closer, over here.
[Dean] Right up in here, in here.
-[Dean] Oof. Dean, where's edible glue? -[Lori] Oh, here, here, here.
[Dean] No, you have it. I gave it right back to you.
Okay. So that should be fine.
[Dennis] She looks good, guys.
[Corinda] Watch that knife. Get away.
-Yup, yup, yup. -Just get your arm away from the knife.
[Dennis] Getting away from the knife.
[Dean] Finishing touches. Any colors, anything you see, get it on there.
-[Jonathan] Ten, nine... -[Timmy] Mm. Don't shake it.
-...eight, seven... -[Corinda] Okay.
-...six, five... -Faster, faster.
-...four, three... -[Dean] Add some teeth.
-[Nils] Nice and easy. -...three, two, one.
-Hands off your displays! -Whoo!
-[Vanessa] Oh, my God! -That's how you do 45 minutes.
-Yes, sir. -All right.
-We did it. -Oh, my God.
Sweet Lunatics, tell us about this terrifying stuffed animal.
Lisa's favorite stuffed toy when she was little was a bunny named Jack.
But in our story, Jack was replaced by Piggy.
And, uh, jealous Jack ripped it.
[Shinmin] Oh, my gosh.
I think that pig is darling.
The one drooping button eye,
that's it for me. That's it for me.
It tells so much of the story here.
While I love the idea of using noodles,
I think you needed a thinner noodle
for it to look a little bit more like stuffing.
The balance of cake, sugar and pumpkin, this is an amazing job.
Dean, I mean this in the best possible way,
I cannot tell that's pumpkin.
You did such an amazing job creating texture.
And even the stitching, it looks like what you would expect
a stuffed pig would look like.
Thank you, Sweet Lunatics.
-Thank you. -Thank you.
[Corinda] So Octavio is absolutely sick
of all the kids in the house pulling on his tentacles.
So, one night, he gets ahold of the piggy bank,
smashes it onto the floor, gets the loot.
He realizes they're gonna find my suction cup prints as evidence.
So he decides that he's gonna start cutting off his own legs.
-[Shinmin] Oh. -[Corinda] To try and save himself from being convicted.
I like that you chose an unusual animal.
I love that it's almost like
the butternut squash spoke to you,
and then you created that character out of it.
-That's the perfect shape for an octopus head. -[Shinmin] Yes.
-Thank you. -[Aarti] It's brilliant choice
and sculpting, too. Well done.
This character has such presence.
I love that it's completely filled up the platform.
Now, with the sugar work, I love that you did create the knife,
but I was like, "Why is there a knife?"
Until you explained the story, I was expecting to see more, like, a hammer
-to break the piggy bank. -[Aarti] Right.
Trick Or Sweets, great job.
-Thank you, guys. -Thank you.
[Timmy] My son had a favorite stuffed animal, it was a monkey.
And we wanted to imagine what Kiki would do
if my son brought home another stuffed animal.
I am so happy to see this royal icing and microwave technique
for the stuffing.
Great job there.
And I also love that you created this texture on the monkey.
It actually looks knitted.
-But I would love to see some stitching on there. -Sure.
The way that the monkey is emerging triumphantly
from what's left of that elephant,
there's so much energy in it.
And just the way he's like, "Rawr!"
You know, we can get that story.
For me, I'm really craving the elephant head to complete the story.
And so perhaps if you'd made the trunk even larger,
I'd really get this as an elephant,
as opposed to maybe a hippo.
Pumpkin Up The Volume, thank you very much.
-Thank you. -Thank you.
Good job on that.
-Good job. -Good job.
Teams, you all transformed our childhood furry friends
into Halloween fiends.
But one team really took the cake.
Congratulations to...
-Sweet Lunatics. -Oh, yes!
[Jonathan] Your pumpkin pig's texture and color
really blew the judges away.
You've earned first pick of the pumpkins.
-Yes. -[Jonathan] Make sure you pick the cute one.
Teams, you'll take a little comfort
knowing that it's time for the Spine Chiller challenge.
Oh!
[gasps] It's a book.
-[Aarti] Hm. -[Jonathan] Oh.
Interesting.
Turns out some popular kids' nursery rhymes
were really about some horrific stuff,
like the Black Plague,
pagan rituals,
even execution.
Sleep tight, kiddos.
In this Spine Chiller challenge,
you'll have to use cake, pumpkin and sugar
to show us the real scary story
behind these nursery rhymes.
And to celebrate the truly terrified kid inside of all of us,
for your tasting element, you'll have to transform some classic childhood treats
into sophisticated sweets.
You can choose between rice cereal treats,
chocolate chip cookies and peanut butter bars.
-Mm! -Oh, wow. Okay.
You have got just five hours!
And your time starts...
now!
We didn't win that one so gotta make it up on this one.
[Lisa] I never had nursery rhymes when I was a kid.
The only that I know the history of is "Ring Around the Rosie",
-and it's got to do with the Black Plague. -[Lori] It's dark. Yeah.
You know, how it says "ashes, ashes."
-They used to burn their bodies in the street. -Right.
And so maybe a pile of ashes and bones.
So, who do you wanna draw?
-[Lori] Right. -[Lisa] Let's do a little girl.
-Let's give her the Black Plague. -Yeah!
That's a great idea!
We picked "Ring Around the Rosie."
You know who looks really cool? Plague doctors.
[Lisa] The story is about the Plague doctor taking little Emily,
who is infected.
The Plague started with rats. People got sick.
And because they had a certain smell, they had roses around.
What are the bones gonna be in the ash pile?
We can do our tasting treat.
-Let's do the peanut butter bars. -I love peanut butter bars.
We'll ask the judges to pick a bone out of the pile of ashes.
[Lisa] Out of the pile of ashes.
For our tasting element, we'll be making a smoked brownie peanut butter bar,
and for some heat, sambal chili.
I mean, there's so many.
What about "Mary Had a Little Lamb?"
Oh.
[Corinda] It's too sweet?
Do you guys know the back history on "Jack Be Nimble"?
-No. -No. What is that?
So basically Jack be nimble, Jack be quick,
Jack jump over the candlestick.
-Okay. -It has to do with yellow fever.
So they used to put candles by the beds to ward off yellow fever.
But the other side of it is about is this pirate, Jack,
who always evaded, like, capture and stuff.
Jack has yellow fever.
He's having a very vivid dream.
He, you know, tries to take some gold out of his chest on the beach.
But as soon as he gets it, Black Jack, the pirate,
his spirit wants his gold back.
So there was rice cereal treats,
there was peanut butter bars
and chocolate chip cookies.
-I love chocolate chip cookies. -Yes.
-Love chocolate chip cookies. -I'm thinking we go chocolate chip cookies.
We're gonna make a walnut chocolate chip cookie
with espresso liqueur and ganache inside.
-[Dennis] Oh. -[Nils] And then we'll gild it with gold leaf on the top
so it actually looks like part of the treasure chest.
-Oh, that's great. -Yeah.
King Richard III, his name was Humpty Dumpty,
and then he fell off a wall,
but the wall was actually a horse.
-Ah. -Oh.
[Timmy] So, we want to do a pop-up book style cake.
So Humpty Dumpty dies and he falls apart.
And he and his horse he fell off of,
they're coming back to life.
Do you guys like rice cereal, marshmallows and maybe chocolate?
-Yeah. -I can cut them as a, as a bone.
Maybe even on the tombstone.
So Vanessa has this great idea
of incorporating her tasting element by making a tombstone.
And just placing those bones around the tombstone.
-Hey, Dennis, Drew. -[Drew] What's up?
[Dean] Which pumpkins do you want?
-Uh-huh. -Don't worry about it 'cause I got first pick.
[Drew] We'll see. Yeah.
[Dean grunts]
[Lisa] Dean is going to make the Plague doctor, which is all pumpkin.
[Dean] I needed a big pumpkin like this
to be able to get big enough pieces to build
a realistic character.
[Lisa] And Lori will be working on the rats from blown sugar.
[Lori] The rats are the ones that had infected the people.
I named her Emily because I thought her name sounded old.
I'm gonna be working on the little girl.
No wonder being his daughter and all, her name is Emily.
I gave her the Plague.
All right.
[Nils] Dennis is gonna carve a big, wooden chest out of pumpkin.
We need color back there so I have some melted candy wafers here,
and I am coloring them blue.
[Nils] Corinda is gonna get the backboard up.
You know, make it look like a beach scene at night.
There's gonna be some stars.
I'm gonna start on the tasting element.
I'm gonna make an elevated chocolate chip cookie.
All right, one egg at a time. Here we go.
So, I chose chocolate chip cookies because I love them.
If you're gonna pick chocolate chip cookies, we have to elevate it.
I'm gonna use milk chocolate chips and some dark chocolate chips.
Imma throw a little bit of walnuts in there to bring it up a touch.
And then we're gonna hit it with a little bit of coffee liqueur
and a little bit of Irish cream.
This isn't necessarily one for the kiddos.
This one's more for the adults and the pirates.
All right.
See you guys in a minute.
You okay, Drew?
Working on this head,
finding this pumpkin a little bit big but it's working out pretty good.
[Timmy] Drew's gonna make old Humpty Dumpty.
Humpty Dumpty's gonna be sculpted completely
out of pumpkin and butternut squash.
I'm just cooling off some white isomalt
so I can put it over the skull.
[Timmy] Vanessa is very skilled at all things sugar.
She can do anything from pulled and poured sugar to blown sugar.
Vanessa's gonna work on her sugar skulls, bones,
our tasting element and rice cereal tombstones.
Gonna lay this white fondant on there to create some pages
'cause we're going for that open pop-up book.
For our challenge, I'm gonna work on the backdrop and the horse.
And then adding some shading and some stenciling
with this edible paint airbrush
so that I can create a 2D background
that our 3D elements can just pop off of
so it really looks like a true pop-up book.
Good.
-Are you good on that side? -Yep.
What are you guys looking for in this round compared to the last round?
I think in this round I'm looking for
a really obvious nursery rhyme.
Don't pick something obscure, and don't mess with it too much.
I wanna get it immediately.
[Corinda] I'm gonna start putting these melting wafers on here
because it's gonna help hold him together
and make him a lot more stable
because he is going to be standing.
Look, it's like putting on sunblock.
I am putting pajamas on Jack.
The fondant is drying out quickly
so it's making it a little bit challenging, but we'll get it done.
[Lisa] For Emily's skirt,
I wanna add a lot of textures so I'm going to ganache it
and then use modeling chocolate.
This is the chest of Emily.
Lori, right now, is going to make some sugar rats.
[Lori] I am pulling the sugar.
What I'm doing is I'm folding it and putting air into it.
The more I do that, the cooler it will be and it'll conform like a clay.
From there you can blow it, you can sculpt it,
you can do different things with it.
See the air going in?
Maybe this guy should be the dead one. [laughs]
I've got so many dents and fingerprints in.
So I need the air to go into his neck,
but if it goes too far, then you loose all the dimension of the head.
If they're all slightly different,
that's okay, no two rats are the same.
Oh, my God. [bleep]
This is too thin, it's nothing.
I thought it'd be fatter and I'd be able to cut a piece of this but it's too thin.
[Nils] Dennis is carving the pumpkin for the treasure chest,
and he's like, "I don't think that's gonna work with this pumpkin,
it's already breaking."
All right. What if I do this?
I'm gonna screw them all together.
I'll cut another one, put it in here,
as I come back in, straighten this out, straighten this out.
I don't think that's gonna be big enough on the pole, because it's gonna feel small.
Okay.
For the treasure chest, we need the pumpkin to be big, front and center.
-Let me find a pumpkin. -They're gonna wanna see a whole pumpkin.
Especially since we started the last one with fondant,
they're gonna want to see pumpkin, a whole one.
This pumpkin ain't gonna work.
[Corinda] I don't know, dude. You're the pumpkin guy.
[sighs]
Should we just get another pumpkin?
It's up to you, man.
That's a you call. I don't know-- Again.
All right, let me find a pumpkin.
[Nils] The pumpkin treasure chest has to be on there.
It's an integral part of it.
It's new pumpkin time.
You're good, Dennis.
You can tell he's starting to get a little down about it,
time's moving so fast,
it is imperative that we get him back up on the horse.
That one looked better.
[Corinda] Oh, dude, look how much easier that one was.
-So much easier. -[Dennis]
[Nils] How you doing, Dennis?
It'll be a little different, but it's pretty cool-looking.
[Nils] Okay. That'll work.
Be good to me. Come on, be good to me.
[Jonathan] Three hours left!
[Timmy] Make them gnarly, man.
[Drew] That's how we do it.
For the amount of time, it looks great.
Add the nose, teeth, we're popping out the eyes.
We're going for creepy. Anything creepy, I'm all about it.
Halloween wars, it's probably the pinnacle as a pumpkin carver.
Coming from a very small town, winning Halloween Wars, it'd be life-changing.
[Vanessa] I'm starting to make my rice cereal treat,
so I'm browning some butter to get that nutty flavor.
[Timmy] Vanessa's gonna make our tasting element.
A brown butter and brandy rice cereal treat
with chocolate drizzle and drunken raisins.
[Vanessa] We're gonna kick it up a notch
and I'm gonna get some raisins drunk with brandy.
I'm gonna start adding my marshmallows.
So after this has melted,
I'm going to add the rice cereal, just gonna mix this in.
Some chocolate. Can't go wrong with too much chocolate.
Just dump it here, and then I'm gonna add my drunken raisins.
I gotta make sure that every little corner has drunken raisins.
Drizzle some chocolate, done.
[Timmy] One of the biggest challenges of this design is creating a floating horse.
That' really risky.
We've got a lot of support structure,
a lot of cake,
and I'm adding tons of ganache to that.
I have to make sure that it's not creating too much weight
that's gonna start pulling that page away.
The more I add to this, I know the heavier it's getting.
So if this backdrop starts to move, watching for all of that.
This horse is really impressive.
You don't have to create an entire horse,
just the bust and then the rest of it is all painted on.
It's really smart.
I'm gonna work on Emily's head.
You want me to help you lift it down?
-[Dean] No. -[Lisa] Okay.
The tasting element is based on the peanut butter bar.
One layer is peanut butter and has cream cheese and chopped peanuts.
I'll add graham cracker crust and then the sambal chili.
Our theme has to do with burning bodies and smoke,
so we decided to get heat in there for the fire and the burning.
The chocolate's gonna be the outside casing.
I'll put this in the freezer.
So this is our cream cheese that I'm gonna smoke with some cherry wood chips.
[Lori] Remember, they gotta taste it, too.
[Dean] These are really fine smoking chips.
It draws air through the top, puts the smoke into the bowl.
If you cover it with plastic,
it holds a bunch of it in there and then you'll get the smoke flavor
imparted into what you're doing.
Bartenders use this a lot to flavor drinks.
See how fast that smoke fills in?
-[Lori] Oh, wow. -Oh, yeah. Smells like a campfire.
So I'll fill all of those,
and then top it with the crunchy element
that has the sambal chili in it.
-Dennis is gonna be a menace to the competitors. -[chuckles]
What I love about this pumpkin carver
is he definitely showed some editing skills.
He originally selected a different pumpkin,
and he ended up with something that just wasn't working out, he's trying to make it work,
and eventually, he just tossed that aside and selected another pumpkin.
Now he has a chest that's standing up,
and that they can fill with the treasures.
[Vanessa] Your eyes are ready.
[Timmy] Oh, that's gonna be awesome.
-Rough-- -Hair.
Rough hair. Yeah.
One of the really cool techniques that Vanessa's gonna do
is make some dragon's beard for the mane of the horse.
I'm just gonna add some color.
[Timmy] She's gonna leave it a little matted.
That way, it looks like this horse hair has been buried for years.
The cornstarch prevents it from sticking to each string.
We really want it to still look like it's kind of mangy looking.
We just wanna add it on and let it fall where it falls.
Oh, cool! Pretty in pink. [chuckles]
[Lisa] I'm using a sponge on her to make her look really delicate.
Trying. [laughs]
I'm trying to give it a nice fuzzy look
like one of those cashmere sweaters.
[Jonathan] You have two hours left!
[Dean] There's never enough time.
[Nils] I'm making the ganache right now
for our chocolate chip cookies.
We're starting to add the liqueur.
Gotta make sure you can taste it, though.
Just adding a little more dark chocolate too to give it the consistency we want.
Put some sandwiches together.
They can set a little bit before we cover them in gold.
Make it look like a coin.
Gold leaf is very tricky in this sense.
But it is crazy light.
Just like that.
[Dean] I was thinking that might be the beak of the plague doctor
'cause it'll be sticking out.
[Lisa] Dean Murray, he's one of the best pumpkin carvers I've seen.
I can't believe he makes pumpkins look so lively.
I want Dean to win so bad.
He's so good. I really love that guy.
[Dean] I have to layer the head.
The cake artists are making their cakes in layers,
I gotta do pumpkin in layers to get the right shape.
It's not the ideal situation, but in order to get the look I'm looking for,
it's what I gotta do.
We'll see what we get. [laughs]
Rats are various different colors of brown,
so I made the decision to airbrush for a couple of reasons.
When you want a darker color, it's easier to airbrush than mixing the liquids.
Black doesn't mix well, it tends to turn purple a lot,
and we don't want it to blend in with the background
which will be dark.
So I figured I'd start with a grayish color
and then airbrush will be easier to cover them that way.
Well get him covered and then I can come back
and pour another liquid sugar and just... [sucks air]
I wanted to have the pirate cutout
so he had a nice silhouette
and then the idea is put him down,
pour sugar over all of him
and then slowly start to lift him in the direction you want it moving.
[Dennis] Looking good. It's looking really good.
You know, I'm not quite sure how I feel about this technique
because he is just moving a big support base
that has some sugar poured on top of it.
[Aarti] It's almost like there's not enough
to really make a statement at this point.
It almost looks a little bit like a mistake.
I wanna go onto the finale. I have my 9-year-old at home.
I definitely wanna do it for him because he's my biggest fan.
It doesn't matter what I make or what I do,
he's right there, and he's like,
"Oh, my God, Mommy, this looks great. This looks fantastic."
[Nils] Don't make me cry, yo.
-You know. You have kids, you know. -Yeah, I know.
I wanna win one for my family, I wanna win one for everybody that comes to the shop.
You wanna go home and you want your kids to be like,
"Mommy, I'm so proud of you!"
-Like-- -Dang it.
-[Dennis chuckles] -Stop it.
[Nils laughs]
Okay. Back to tombstones.
Everyone thinks of Humpty Dumpty as an egg,
so we wanted to add in an egg just oozing out of his mouth.
[Vanessa] I'm pouring ice.
[Timmy] Humpty Dumpty's sugar eyes are really gonna be difficult
because pumpkin doesn't really support sugar well.
Just making some holes so that I can insert a light.
[Jonathan] You have one hour!
[Vanessa] Oh, God.
-[Timmy] Talk to me. -[Drew] Oh, yeah.
-[Drew] These are the eyes, yes? -[Vanessa] Yes.
They're a little heavy so they're wanting to drop
so it's difficult to hold the eyes in place with the pumpkin.
[Vanessa] All right. How about I hold the eyes?
-[Drew groans] -[Vanessa] What? What happened?
-[Timmy] It cracked. -[Vanessa] Oh, my God.
[Vanessa] All right, how about I hold the eye?
-[Drew] Sure. Hold it. -[object clattering]
[Vanessa] Oh, no!
[Timmy] Humpty's eye falls out and cracks.
[Vanessa] Oh, my God. [grunts]
[Timmy] Only 45 minutes left.
It's not a lot of time, and he's our main character. He has to have eyes.
[Aarti] Mistakes are happening, right?
Those are the things that happen in the last few minutes.
[Lisa] I am working on the door for our backboard,
so I am covering this in chocolate.
I'm gonna add another layer of thin, lighter chocolate
so it gives it the texture.
I'm helping with doing the stones on the wall here.
[Dean] Take your time, but hurry up.
Okay, have it hang over about 0.5 inch.
That backdrop, as developed and as dimensional as it was, that just came up in a second.
[Aarti] That doorway has so much detail. I'm very impressed.
I mean, that looks real.
-[Dean] Okay, we're under. -[Lisa] Yeah.
-Okay, rest it. -[Lisa] Yeah.
-[Dean] Wait, we're on my fingers. -[Lisa exclaims] Okay.
-[Dean] No, tip her head towards you. -[Lisa] Oh.
-[Dean] Tip her head towards you! -[Lisa] Okay.
-So I can get my fingers out! -[Lisa chuckles] I'm sorry!
-[laughs] What the? -[Lisa chuckles]
[Dean] That black is just dripping everywhere.
How much she touches her, it's just gonna turn it black.
[Lisa] She's sick.
[Dean] We need graham cracker crumbs.
Just try not to splash it up onto the characters.
I have our tasting treat here, I'm just cleaning them up,
then I'm going to powder them and they'll look aged.
Like they've been burnt in the ashes.
Only 10 minutes left!
[Dennis] Here we go.
[Nils] Love it. Love it.
[Corinda] Zhuzh this up a little bit.
[Nils] I gotta get all this stuff on.
[Corinda] Dude, that's beautiful.
[Nils] I'm gonna bury some of the coins in there, you know?
Let's make it look like he stole gold.
-[Corinda] Maybe put some on the ground over here. -[Nils] Yeah.
I'm making edible moss for our backdrop
so it looks like it has some grass growing in the walls.
So it's just flour, sugar, baking soda, egg, and corn syrup.
So when it comes out, it looks like that.
[Lori] Look at that.
-[Lisa] All right? -[Lori] Oh, my gosh.
-[Timmy] Y'all got that eye? -[Vanessa] Coming.
-[Timmy] Quickly. -[Vanessa] You ready for round two?
[Drew] Going in with the eye.
-[Vanessa] Oh! What happened here? -[Drew] I'm gonna fix it.
I need something to hold it up.
-[Vanessa] Is that good? -I got these toothpicks if you could put those in there.
[Vanessa] Is that good?
[Timmy] Gotta be really careful adding support in there.
The more stuff that we do to that pumpkin,
the more it can crack and start to fall apart.
-It's in. Leave it. -[Drew] Don't touch it.
-[Timmy] All right. -[Vanessa] Don't touch it.
[Dean] We gotta get the fire done yet, we need the rats on,
we need the roses on, we need the tasting.
-[Lisa] Yes. -Almost there, guys.
[Dean] We need the ashes.
[Lisa] I'm really scared to touch your rats, but I gotta touch them.
All right, guys, I'm putting the tasting element on the display.
-[Lisa] Okay. -[Lori] Make sure the big ones are underneath.
Those are solid chocolate.
Look at how many rats are on that.
And each one is a little different.
These are really great little touches.
-[Dean] Okay, we need roses. We need those. -[Lori] Rose. Okay.
[Lisa] Feeling good, yeah. [Lori] Team work, guys, we're doing it.
[Jonathan] You have one minute!
-[Lisa] One minute, guys. -Let's do this.
Tasting element is going on.
-[Corinda] I'm excited. -[Dean] Yeah.
Can I put one here? Okay.
[Dean] Did you make it? The edible moss?
[Lisa] I'm sticking it right now.
Ten, nine...
[Dean] Get it on!
-[Lisa] It's hot. -[Jonathan] ...eight, seven,
six, five, four, three, two, one!
Hands off your displays!
[all sigh in relief]
Good job, guys. Bam.
-[Vanessa] Oh, my goodness. -That's the longest five hours of my life.
Sweet Lunatics.
Tell us this twisted story behind your nursery rhyme.
[Dean] We've decided on "Ring Around The Rosie."
Dr. Black, the plague doctor, has come to see poor little sick Emily
who's decaying from her illness which was spread by the rats.
And they often marked a plague house with a red X on the door.
Dean, I have to acknowledge how wonderful this pumpkin plague doctor is.
The fact that you incorporated that sort of reddish undertone to this black is stunning
and also gives off this really classic fairy tale vibe.
My only problem with this piece is the girl herself.
The sculpting of the body is very blocky.
I love that rosy rash,
but the rest of the discoloration
looks really muddled and dirty.
-I adore your rats. -Thank you.
[Aarti] I love that there's a dead deflated rat
at the foot of the plague doctor.
So, yeah, well done.
You ready to try these bones?
Let's do it.
[Lori] We chose peanut butter bars for our tasting treat
and we wanted to represent both the burning of the bodies
and the smoke created from them.
So part of it is peanut butter with a chili paste
and you have a crunch element that's in there
and the other part is cream cheese
with a smoked element inside.
With every bite, I feel like I got more flavor.
I do wish that I could taste the smoke a little bit more
because I think that was what was so exciting to me about your confection.
I completely agree with Aarti.
This is definitely a treat that keeps evolving with every bite,
but I think my favorite thing about it is how you built that into your story.
I love that it incorporates the "Ashes, ashes we all fall down" section
of the nursery rhyme.
-So, good job. -Thank you.
Sweet Lunatics, thank you very much. Great job.
[Sweet Lunatics] Thank you.
-Good job. -Great job.
-Ooh. [chuckles]
[Timmy] We're depicting Humpty Dumpty,
who was King Richard III
who fell off of his horse who was named Wall,
and all of his kings horses and men couldn't put him back together
so he came back together from the grave for revenge.
When I first saw the horse erupting through the background,
I got chills.
Every hair on my arm, and I'm Indian, so there's a lot of them...
[all laugh]
-...stood up on end. That's incredible. -Thank you.
I think the thing for me about Humpty Dumpty
is that he's not your quintessential egg-shaped Humpty Dumpty.
For someone's who's supposed to be the star,
my eye is much more pulled up to the horse.
[Shinmin] There are so many amazing details
and incredible technique here.
My favorite thing about the carving
is that you actually created a release from the cheeks, from the teeth, and the gums.
Those details don't get lost on me.
I think it's absolutely lovely.
And this painting in the back,
I saw how quickly you did that.
That's absolutely stunning.
But I couldn't tell it was Humpty,
and I didn't know until you told us.
What are we tasting today?
We chose rice cereal treat.
What we made for you today is Cereal Killer treats
with brown butter, rice cereal,
and marshmallows with brandy because it's King Richard's favorite drink,
with a drizzle of white chocolate ganache, some drunken raisins.
'Cause you know I gotta have my drunken raisins,
and a pinch of salt and some toasted walnuts.
When I think of a rice cereal treat,
I really crave that chewy marshmallow
and then the airy crispiness of the rice cereal.
You've definitely nailed that here.
The addition of the cocoa brings that depth.
I think this is great.
Vanessa, one of my favorite parts here
-is the drunken raisins. -[chuckles]
[Aarti] I also loved the texture of it.
I have two little kids, there's a lot of rice cereal treats in my life,
this is elegant.
Thank you.
Pumpkin Up The Volume, thank you very much.
-Good job on those treats. -[Vanessa sighs]
[Corinda] We chose "Jack Be Nimble."
There are a few renditions of the nursery rhyme.
One of the renditions is about Jack and he has jaundice,
and then there's another rendition that talks about a pirate named Black Jack.
And Black Jack was elusive, nobody could every catch him,
so we combined the two and Jack here is having a fever dream
and in his nightmare, he's being chased by Black Jack the pirate.
This is a very cohesive, stylized display.
The color palette that you chose,
really looks like it's right out a page
of a classic nursery rhyme book. I love that.
Perhaps the only thing that doesn't look as well executed
would be the sugar work here.
You didn't have to do so much, you could have focused more on this silhouette
because that is really your highlight sugar piece here.
I have to talk about that chest.
There is so much wood detail there, the grain looks gorgeous.
-Yeah, it's really something. It's beautiful. -Thank you.
What are we tasting today?
[Nils] I took a chocolate chip cookie,
it's got a little bit of milk and dark chocolate chips in it, walnuts.
Then the ganache on the inside is 50-50 dark and milk.
It's got a bit of Irish cream and coffee liqueur in the ganache
and I gilded it with a 24-carat gold sheet.
I love a chocolate chip cookie
and it's precisely for the textures of the chew
and the crisp around the edges.
You've cut it with a circle cutter.
I love that you thought about the design,
but you really took that crisp away
so all we have now is the chew from the cookie.
I'm really wanting that crisp.
First of all, your ganache is to die for.
I love a mix of dark chocolate and milk chocolate.
You got just the right amount of Irish cream in there.
If you could roll that up into a truffle so I can take it home.
It's just delicious.
Trick Or Sweet, thank you very much.
[Trick or Sweet] Thank you.
Good job, guys.
-Good job. -You did good.
Teams, for this Spine Chiller,
you each had to depict a very frightening nursery rhyme,
but one team's story is not going to lead to a happy ending.
The team being eliminated tonight is...
Pumpkin Up The Volume.
[Vanessa sighs]
With the nursery rhyme challenge,
it's all about the story.
Guys. [blows kiss] Thank you.
I can't believe it, I thought we had just enough to get us through.
But I'm very proud of what our team did.
We'll see the rest of you in the main competition.
Rest up.
[Jonathan] This season on Halloween Wars...
[mimicking buzzsaw]
[woman] I would not wanna see that in a dark alley, I'll tell you that.
Welcome to the jungle.
[Judges exclaiming]
-Wow! -What?
I wanna throw this at you, it's so good.
See the resemblance?
This looks like it belongs in a museum.
[team cheering]
[gasps]
-[woman] Oh! -[woman gasping]
-This is not good. -It's not.
-[gasps] -[yells]