[moaning]
I'm back!
Zak Bagans from Ghost Adventures here
and this season on Halloween Wars,
you cannot escape the fright.
It's the third qualifying round,
with the last three teams competing for the final two slots
in the main competition.
This is a complete disaster.
[Zak] Get ready for the most intense...
- Whoa! - [laughs]
[Zak] ...terrifying...
[all exclaiming]
[Zak] ...and astounding season of Halloween Wars yet.
- [man] Push, push, push. - [Aarti Sequeira gasps]
- Oh, my God. - I'm scared.
[theme music playing]
Squad Ghouls, Candy Corn Killers
and Pastry Pirates.
You three teams are all up today. Are y'all ready?
[all] Yeah!
- Ooh, the energy is here. - [Aarti] I know.
[Shinmin Li] All right.
Oh, Eddie.
These three are in luck,
'cause I saved the best for last.
And by the best,
I mean the scariest.
- [thunder rumbles] - [woman scoffs]
- [alarm buzzing] - [siren blaring]
[all exclaiming]
- [Aarti] Whoa. - [Shinmin Li] Unis.
- Uh-oh. - [Eddie] Should we leave?
[Zak] Alcatraz. "The Rock."
Just over a mile off-shore
from San Francisco,
tales of this cursed island
date back to long before
it became home to the most
infamous prison in history.
During our overnight lockdown,
we captured entities screaming.
And I even saw two red glowing eyes
staring at me from a jail cell.
Now, were these the spirits of inmates
who perished trying to escape
via the freezing, shark infested waters
all around them?
Their souls imprisoned in Alcatraz forever.
I know what my experiences led me to believe.
- Yeah, I think I could survive a night there. - [Aarti laughs]
- Oh. - [Eddie] Okay, it ain't that bad.
- It ain't that bad. - Oh, please.
- [Shinmin] Oh, sure. - You sure about that, Eddie?
[thunder rumbles]
Everything I just said was a lie.
- [all laugh] - I'm just a boy.
As Zak says,
the prisoners who failed
in their escape attempt from Alcatraz,
could still be trying to get off that island.
All right, here we go.
Now, we want you to create
an unbelievably imaginative escape
from one of our most wanted monsters.
- [all] Oh. - [Hannah Smith] Okay, that's good. That's perfect.
We can do that.
[Aarti] I'm very excited.
- [Hannah] Okay. - [Reggie Harris] We got this.
[Eddie] Now, as for flavors,
we want you to combine
two of the most famous San Francisco favorites.
Sourdough and chocolate.
- [Pege Yates] Guys. - In a cake?
[Aarti laughs]
All right, let's see what you can do.
You got seven hours. Let's go.
- Go. Let's go, let's go. - What?
- Okay. I'm really glad we got the mummy. - Okay.
Our team name is Squad Ghouls.
We're not here to play no games.
We came to get it on, baby.
That's how we do.
- Why don't we create a clothes basket... - [Janet Michael] Yeah.
...out of a pumpkin
and make it look like the mummy
- escaped through the laundry basket? - And he could use
everyone's clothes.
- [Reggie] Oh, yeah. - That's perfect.
[Reggie] We came up with the story
of a mummy wrapping himself up with old clothing
from the laundry room
and escaping with a clothes basket.
He's dying to get away.
I'll take the, uh, head of the mummy
and make that out of modeling chocolate.
I'm Reggie Harris. I'm a cake artist.
Customers come to me,
because I make cakes look like the real thing.
We'll wrap it with fondant and modeling chocolate,
give it some texture.
I'm gonna start with the pumpkin,
to make a basket.
[Reggie] Janet Michael is our pumpkin carver
and she is awesome.
She is a great carver.
- Looks like the... - Oh, we need some sharks.
- Ooh. Uh, I think... - [Hannah] And I can do the water out of sugar.
[Reggie] Hannah Smith is our sugar artist.
She's 20 years old.
She is dangerous with cake,
dangerous with sugar.
It's really sticky.
So, I chose to do almond in this,
because I thought it would be a really nice balance
with the tang.
[Reggie] For our cake, Hannah is gonna make
almond sourdough sponge
with a tart raspberry jam,
toasted almonds and a milk chocolate
French buttercream.
The sourdough, if you overmix it,
it could totally rise and then crash back down.
So, I'm gonna mix it by hand.
This is just milk, butter and oil.
And then, we will fold in the sourdough starter
at the very end,
so that we don't let any of those lovely bubbles
get mashed out.
Okay, guys. It's ready to go in the oven.
[Reggie] Awesome, awesome.
[Hannah] All right.
What amazing challenge. Alcatraz...
- I'm excited about this. - And werewolves.
- Yeah. - It's a lot, uh, very hairy.
So, like, water. He can float in the water.
Like, what we can use to float?
Toilet seat?
- That, uh, he can be to sit in. - [Tammy Varela] Oh.
- Oh, that... - Like, a little boat to, like, hide in. [laughs]
-That's so funny. -It's waterproof. It's waterproof.
- Okay. - It's waterproof, yeah.
[Julia Jankowski] We are the Pastry Pirates.
Our werewolf is using the spoon
to dig the pipes of the toilet bowl.
Then he's able to ride the toilet bowl
through the shark-infested waters
out of Alcatraz.
We can have him, like, he's flying back,
- like, "Oh, my gosh." - Okay.
[Julia] We're going to be doing the werewolf
mostly out of cake and modeling chocolate.
And I'm going to carve the pumpkin for the toilet.
- Propeller, like, on the back? - [Rodolfo Goloso] Yeah.
I'm Julia Jankowski and I'm a pumpkin carver from New York City.
I got into pumpkin carving because of Halloween Wars.
It means the world to me to be here.
- Oh, yeah. - [Rodolfo] Can you make something beautiful
-with the tongue? -[Tammy] Oh, yeah. I can make his tongue
look like slobber coming off.
- Yeah, that's amazing. - [Tammy chuckles]
[Julia] My sugar artist is Tammy Varela.
I know Tammy is super talented.
She can do pretty much anything in sugar
that you can think of.
[Rodolfo] For the flavor, I go for pumpkin base.
[Julia] My cake artist is Rodolfo Goloso.
Rodolfo is very competitive.
He has lots of drive and lots of focus.
I know that he'll be able to hold
up in the pressure of competition.
Sourdough can bring a lot of flavor
and I don't wanna feel too much
of the sourdough taste.
But I'm gonna add a lot of spices.
Little kick.
That's gonna be the trick.
[Julia] Rodolfo is going to make a pumpkin cake
with cinnamon and clove,
dark chocolate ganache with orange zest,
layered with pumpkin Italian buttercream.
[Rodolfo] So, the texture is really nice,
I'm ready for the oven.
All right, so we got classic Halloween monsters
escaping from Alcatraz.
I mean, how do you depict
that someone is locked up?
- [Shinmin] Right. - I'm looking for the uniform.
- Yeah. - Just the pin stripes.
- Exactly. Orange. - [Eddie] Old school.
Or, like, a one-piece.
Tattoos, numbers.
Yeah, I mean, I think, you need to set the scene
or else it doesn't make sense
that these characters are escaping.
- [Shinmin] Yeah. - It needs to be some type of water in there.
But, I feel, like, it needs to be some type of action
- if you're escaping, that's an action. - Right.
- Okay. - We have a vampire. [sighs]
We're the Candy Corn Killers.
We're excited to come together
and create something amazing.
He can, like, be actually, like, taking the bars
and, like, busting out.
- Yeah. - And have, like, wings that grew.
[Pege] Our vampire got captured
and thrown into Alcatraz.
They cut his wings off.
The way that he's going to escape
is to eat bats.
And with their blood,
he starts regrowing his wings.
And as he gains his strength,
he's able to break open the bars
and fly away.
What are we doing with the bars?
Let's do sugar.
- [sighs heavily] - You're great.
Pege?
Okay. I might have to drink some bat blood
- to do it. - Some bat blood to get the power to do it?
I'm Pege Yates. I'm a sugar artist from St. Louis, Missouri.
- Well, do you want that other... - This Craig over here
is killing it, but, like, maybe something
a little more beastly.
Like, he's, like, [growls].
[Pege] Brent is our pumpkin artist.
He does a lot of, like, live pumpkin carving.
So, he really loves to actually entertain while carving.
Joey is our cake artist.
He has a lot of love
for really creating complex flavors
This is a sourdough starter.
- And... - I thought sourdough was bread.
Not a cake.
[Pege] Our cake is gonna be a chocolate sourdough cake
with raspberry filling
and a white chocolate buttercream.
[Joey] We started with the sourdough starter
and basically, what we're doing is
we're going to feed it.
Um, so, in this bowl here,
we have four cups of flour
and we have two cups of milk.
And we have the sourdough starter.
Two, three hours from now,
this'll be ready to take on the other ingredients
and then go into the oven.
I see some of the other teams are going to the ovens.
Doesn't stress me out at all.
I know that it's going to, you know,
make the cake very moist.
Um, and give it the tenderness
that I'm looking for.
So, um, I'll wait it out.
I think this is a really fun challenge,
because a lot of people don't know
- you can use sourdough starter in baking. - Mmm-hmm.
[Shinmin] That breaks down the gluten in the cake
- and leaves a really tender cake. - [Aarti] Mmm.
- It's for texture. - [Eddie] Texture, yep.
So, um, you're not gonna taste the sourdough so much.
Since you're not gonna taste that sourdough starter in the cake,
I would find something sour
- to add to your cake. - Yeah.
Yeah, to just really drive home that flavor combination.
Ooh. Pumpkin gods. Let's go.
I'm gonna try making
the best pumpkin toilet you ever did see.
I really want to work on the details
to actually make it pretty funny
that it's a very realistic toilet.
So, this is going to be our lid.
[Rodolfo] Looks awesome.
[Julia] Let's see if I can,
kind of, like, fit this into here.
Trying to hide the seams,
uh, so it doesn't look like, just pieces of pumpkin
just glued together.
Um, I really want it to look
kind of, like, a seamless toilet.
Never thought I'd say that.
All right, so I'm making some isomalt for the prison bars.
So, I have to actually figure out a way to make some bars
and, I guess, they're gonna be bent and broken
and I'm a little scared. [chuckles nervously]
- Pege, I think you got this. - [Pege] Oh.
So, I'm aiming for six prison bars
and it's gonna take a lot of sugar.
I'm just gonna add some black gel coloring.
Think we got it.
[clanging]
All right, Joey, I'm gonna grab the pipes
and start filling them up.
So, I've never made anything like this before.
I'm using food grade silicone tubing
to make my prison bars.
Since both ends are open,
the only way that I can imagine,
to make sure the isomalt doesn't pour out of the bottom
is to, kind of, create, like, an isomalt plug.
So, I'm gonna take some isomalt,
let it set a little bit
and then pretty much, just start stuffing it
inside of the bottom.
In theory, it's going to work.
Think I have it stuffed enough
that nothing is gonna come out of the bottom.
So, I'm just gonna pour it in here.
If I can't nail this,
the main focus of our whole jailbreak scene
is gonna be out the door.
[thunder rumbles]
[Pege] I'm just gonna pour it in here.
It's not coming out, so the plug works.
That's good to know.
Terrifies me that they might break
whenever I go to demold them.
And the worst thing I can do
is take them out too early.
They're just gonna collapse.
[Hannah] It's time to go check the cake.
See if they're ready.
Ooh. Perfect.
Nice and golden brown.
Okay, so I'm gonna start with milk chocolate
French buttercream.
This is my sugar water syrup.
And I'm cooking it to about 240 degrees.
Then we're gonna pour this sugar syrup
into our egg yolks to cook it,
so that it's safe to eat.
It's gonna get super light and airy.
It's a lot like a mousse.
Gonna give it a little scrape.
Gonna let it mix for a little bit longer.
That's the thing about French buttercream,
is you can't overmix it.
So, it is pretty much foolproof.
- [thunder rumbles] - What is that?
[Joey] No, what's going on?
[Pege] Uh-oh.
Six hours.
Are you serious?
An hour like that?
[Rodolfo] Guys, be careful. The cakes are really hot.
All right, so what I'm doing
is I'm actually mixing the modeling chocolate
with the fondant.
So, when I'm able to put it on the werewolf,
I can get a lot of details on him
and everything else.
I'm using a ball tool
to figure out where his eyes are gonna be
and push them in,
'cause I'm gonna be making red isomalt eyeballs.
I'm gonna pour clear isomalt.
See all these tiny, tiny little bubbles?
What I'm gonna do is lightly torch over the top.
Adding the lights in the eyes.
Add just a little bit of piping gel,
so the eyeballs will stick.
The reason I wanted the eyes to be red
was to go off of what Zak said
about when he went to Alcatraz.
He actually saw bright glowing red eyes.
And then I'm gonna put in the teeth
out of isomalt.
Kind of scary looking already, huh?
Uh, so, right here, we have the, uh,
raspberry filling.
Uh, we're gonna bring it to a slow boil.
Well, it looks like it's a little hot here.
Hello Candy Corn Killers.
Hello.
I heard that you've been feeding your starter.
Yes, we kind of go and boost the feeding process.
So, we have, um, milk and then the flour
added to the two cups of starter
and then I've just letting it here hang out.
- Okay. - Um, after two hours,
then I will incorporate all the other ingredients
- and pop it in the oven. - Okay.
Because typically, the reason why we use the discard,
is because the starters sort of run out of food.
But when you add it to the batter,
it breaks down the gluten
- for a softer, more moist cake. - Mmm-hmm.
- Best of luck. - [Joey] Thank you.
I'm worried about the time that they have.
- We're gonna transfer... - So, you're gonna transfer
- this big, heavy dude... - This piece over there.
-...onto the toilet? -On the top of there. Yeah.
- Because, he's... - What could go wrong with that, guys?
Nothing, nothing, it's fine.
Don't go there, all right.
Don't jinx. [laughs]
Uh, we have a little plan
that, uh, both, they're gonna hold here.
- And I'm gonna attach over there. - Okay. Okay.
We gonna twist.
- That's smart, okay. - [Rodolfo] Yeah.
- Just don't leave it till the last minute, okay? - No.
- Don't worry about it. - All right?
My heart's beating fast enough. [laughs]
- [Rodolfo chuckles] - I'm too stressed.
- I'm stressed out enough. - [Julia] You and me both.
But thank you.
[Hannah] This is the filling for our cake,
along with the milk chocolate French buttercream.
I wanna bring in some tartness and some punch,
so I'm doing a tart raspberry jam.
There's fresh raspberries, sugar,
a little bit of lemon juice and lemon zest.
And my secret ingredient of citric acid
to help bring out the really natural tartness of the raspberry.
Here, do you wanna try this?
- Nice and punchy. - Oh, yeah.
- Yeah. - Oh, yeah.
When in doubt, carve it out.
This is the vampire.
Kind of, almost, like, a Nosferatu vibe.
But we're still giving him that kind of, like,
middle part with, like, the black hair.
And I'm going after these bat-looking pointy ear things.
Yeah! There he is!
Now, he's really taking form.
[suspenseful music playing]
All right, here...
-Okay, so, let's put the head. Now, you hold the head. -[Tammy] All right.
- Okay. - [Rodolfo] Oh, the mouth.
-[Tammy] Watch his mouth. Watch his mouth. -[Rodolfo] Yeah.
- Go. - [Tammy] Okay, ready?
[Tammy grunts]
- [Rodolfo] That's enough. - [Tammy] That's it.
[Rodolfo] I wanna work with the fondant pieces.
That werewolf looks so good.
But that is a really tall stack of cake.
This is scaring me, the fact that they have to move that giant piece.
[Rodolfo] All right, we're gonna need to move him.
[Julia] We're nervous because anything can happened when it comes to cake.
Oh, the fondant ripped.
[Tammy] Yeah, it's tearing so badly.
[Rodolfo] Yeah, don't worry. We're gonna fix it.
You know what? Needs less weight.
[Julia] Yeah.
That's fine.
- [Rodolfo] All right. Go. - [Tammy] All right.
Get it, guys.
[suspenseful music playing]
[Rodolfo] Hold it! Hold it! Oh, my God!
[Tammy] The cake is falling. Cake is falling.
[dramatic music plays]
[Tammy] Bring it up. [grunts]
[Rodolfo] More.
-[Tammy] Bring it up. Bring it up. -[Rodolfo] No, no, no.
- Oh! That's... - Oh, my gosh!
- [Rodolfo grunts] - [Tammy grunts]
[Julia] I'm just seeing all the cake crumble and come down.
Can we even come back from this?
Actually happened, trying to move that werewolf,
bottom half just fell apart.
[Shinmin] The cake is slowly coming out of his chest.
I think that there is a potential save here.
- I don't mind that tattered fondant clothing... - Right!
- you know. 'cause he's a werewolf. -That's true.
He should be, sort of, blasting and tearing through that clothing.
Right now, this is not about finessing, it is about making sure the character is
- still there in some kind of presentable shape. - Mmm-hmm.
Oh, gosh. This is so hard to watch, guys.
- [Julia] One, two, three... - [Tammy grunts]
[dramatic music plays]
- [Reggie] Okay. - [Hannah] That looks amazing.
[Reggie] There it is.
We used Candy Melts for the skull of the mummy.
I start to add strips of modeling chocolate and fondant
and placing it like an actual muscle structure of a body.
He's in prison you gotta stay strong.
Whoo! Bad boy looking good.
I'm gonna actually take a X-Acto knife
and trim out some teeth, make them uneven.
Man, putting these teeth in is hard. That's why I'm not a dentist.
- My favorite thing about this team, right now. - Yeah.
The mummy has peanuts for teeth.
- Oh! - Oh, I like that!
-That's great! -And they look so... They look perfect.
They look so teeth-like, and they're yellow and kind of aged looking.
- [Aarti] That's great. - [Eddie] I used to know somebody
- who had peanuts for teeth. - [Shinmin] Peanut Teeth?
- You know Peanut Teeth? - Yeah, we called him Peanut Teeth.
[Eddie] Heating it up to get the eyes to stick.
The eyes are made of sugar.
I need these eyes. They look like they're just looking straight through you.
Eyes of hell.
I am about to bring him to life. Call me Frankenstein.
He's alive!
I can't say that yet. That was pre-mature, wasn't it?
- [thunder rumbles] - Whoa!
- [Eddie] Guys... - [Shinmin] What's happening?
Just like Alcatraz,
there's no escape from this challenge.
[screams]
Five hours.
I am definitely doing a little prayer that my
cake turns out delicious, uh...
But, uh, we're gonna keep pushing forward.
[Pege] I feel like we should be way further along than we are,
but I'm really hoping that Joey is able to make up time
for the two hours that we lost waiting for his starter to rise.
So now, what we're gonna do is we're gonna add this starter
to the mix.
So, it literally has the consistency of pizza dough,
but it gets better.
- Candy Corn Killers. - [Joey whoops]
How you feeling about time? It's a little bit less than five hours left.
-I think we're good. I'm not worried. -You're not good!
I'm confident that we will get this.
Basically, from now going forward it's all gonna be getting the piece together.
-Um... Yes. -Yeah, I think so. Ain't nothing on there.
That will go pretty fast.
- You just put your cakes in, too. - Yes.
- That was for a purpose, though. A reason, rather. - Oh, what's the reason?
Well, it's 'cause sourdough, the cake that I'm making,
I had to let it sit for about two hours to let
the starter kind of kick in and get working.
So, by the time that comes out, we'll push forward.
At least we got something done over here.
Less than five hours left. Just put their cakes in.
Hmm. This gonna be tough.
[Hannah] This is my almond sourdough cake.
I'm really happy with the texture of it.
I think it'll be okay to carve also.
And it's gonna be delicious.
So, I'm gonna start layering out cake for our structure.
Layering our chocolate buttercream on top of our almond sourdough sponge.
And then we're gonna add raspberry jam, toasted almonds.
So, after I finish this really quick crumb coat,
I'm gonna throw it in the freezer so that it's ready for you to carve.
[Reggie] Oh, yeah. Awesome. Awesome.
The mummy is reaching to get away,
so I created a hand that was bigger than the rest of the body.
Giving him skeleton fingers, that way it looks like he's been
living a long time and some of his, you know, body has started
to deteriorate or rot.
[Julia] All right. I'm gonna have to go round on the other side.
I could see it in Rodolfo's face, he was distraught.
He spent all this time working on this cake
that was just literally crumbling in front of him.
At this point, I don't know if we can come back from this.
[Rodolfo] All right. Yeah.
- [Shinmin] Hey, Rodolfo. - Hey.
Okay, I see you guys are clearly struggling.
Big, uh, pivot.
- I want you guys just keep you spirits up. Okay? - Yeah.
[Shinmin] Just don't add anything else that you think is gonna continue to fall.
Use whatever you can get your hands on to wrap this stuff.
- [Rodolfo] Yeah. - If we don't see it, I don't care.
Just hold it all in. Make it look intentional.
- All right. - [Shinmin] You guys got this, okay?
-[Rodolfo] All right. Thank you. -[Shinmin] Yay.
[thunder rumbles]
- [Pege] I'm making your eyes, Brent. - Yay.
Zak had said that he was scared of, like, red eyes
in the night that were glowing,
so we're gonna make our vampire have these red glowing eyes.
So, I've already poured the clear isomalt
and then I'm gonna hand paint the red irises,
and then we're gonna backlight it with some lights.
[Brent] I mean, that's a face.
Okay, we're starting on some sweet potato bats.
We are gonna have some bats that have been bitten into,
his teeth are sunk through them, he's feasted on their blood.
Uh, and he's growing stronger to just break out of Alcatraz.
Sweet potato skin graft.
I added my toothpicks in here. Tiny little babies.
And I'm just gonna attach this ear to the head.
Kind of like a seamless adhesion, uh, between the two... Adhesion?
SAT word much?
I didn't know I came here to be smart.
And now we have kind of a shape of a bat head,
where I'm gonna go in, uh, and sculpt this all down to have even more detail,
to be a bat.
That is a bat! So cute.
Fifteen-second dance party.
[mimics techno beat]
- [Rodolfo] So, you hold it there. - [Tammy] All right.
- And I'm gonna pull really hard, okay? - [Tammy] Okay.
- [Rodolfo] And then I cover after again. - [Tammy] Okay.
Got it.
[dramatic music plays]
All right, this looks like it's holding really well.
- [Zak exclaims] - [thunder rumbles]
Two hours.
Oh, my word.
I am concerned that Janet, who is the carver,
is still working on that basket.
That's what that is, I thought it was, like,
bricks or something like that.
- But that's for the basket. - [Aarti] Yeah, that's for the basket.
It's taking her a long time and I also don't think that's the best display
- of pumpkin work. - [Aarti] Right.
Because that could have been done in rice cereal,
it could have been done in cake, it could have been done in chocolate.
When we're looking for the pumpkin work,
I'm looking for really cool sculpting.
She's basically satisfying the requirement of using pumpkin.
- Yeah. - But not so much showing us her art.
Right. Yeah.
I heard the judges say that they're worried it's gonna look like brick.
[Janet] Yeah, I was thinking that.
Reggie, I'm gonna cover all this, like, looks...
- So, it won't look like a brick covered with... - [Reggie] Nice!
[dramatic music plays]
What's that sugar there? Can I put it on top?
Yeah, you can. It's fine.
[Reggie] Hannah's gonna create this sea of shark-infested water.
[Hannah] Let's not torch the pumpkin.
Shark's fins have some little nicks in them.
I like this one a lot.
Hey, guys. So, the cakes are out of the oven. They look great.
- Gorg. - [Joey] And then we can start stacking.
- [Brent] Yeah! - [Pege] Perfect.
It has a white chocolate buttercream,
and then here, this is a raspberry filling.
I need to finish his arms, and wrap him in modeling chocolate.
Add his hands on. I'm pretty stressed right now. I'm hoping I can get it done.
Feels like there's a lot to do and time is ticking away.
- [thunder rumbles] - [eerie music plays]
[Pege] Uh-oh. I feel trouble.
-Oh, no. You know what that is. -[Brent] What's going on?
[dramatic music plays]
[thunder rumbles]
-Oh, no. You know what that is. -[Brent] What's going on?
[Janet] Twist.
[Zak] I definitely didn't want to spend even one single night along on Alcatraz.
So, I can't imagine what that isolation must have been like.
Day after day, year after year.
A place like that, it's good to have someone you can trust.
Especially when you're planning to escape.
You know, Eddie, I bet you would make a really good
partner in crime if we ever needed to escape "The Rock".
- Is that an invitation? - I know.
In his defense, I was known to be a pretty good teammate back in my day.
- Oh, that is true. - [Eddie laughs]
And that's what we want you to add right now.
A good teammate.
Whether it's a stowaway, a secret helper, or a significant other,
add another character to your monster escape, got it?
I'm thinking, like, an egg that's hatching that's a baby vampire.
[Brent] Baby vampires come out of eggs?
I thought you just bit somebody and then they turn into a vampire.
That's not accurate.
[Pege] We don't have time for a twist.
We're already two hours behind on the cake.
Okay, Reggie, thinking about another idea. What if we did a bat?
You can put a bat and we can put the bat on his shoulder, or...
[Hannah] Wait, and I can do that out of sugar.
Okay.
I've never made a bat before, so here goes nothing.
Right now, I'm coloring the sugar.
I really like this black color.
-Look at that. Is that a bat or what? -[Reggie] Oh, my God. Yes.
[Hannah] I'm gonna hope that it doesn't break.
Come on.
I just attached both of the wings. What do you think?
-[Reggie] Oh, yeah. That's it. -[Hannah] Better?
- [Julia] What's your idea? - Uh, shark.
- [Julia] The shark is helping him escape? - [Rodolfo] We can... Yeah!
[Julia] We can make it out of fondant,
which will go good with the, uh, Alcatraz shark-infested waters.
All right. Done moving on.
[Reggie] I'm rolling out, uh, bandages for the mummy.
Creating texture to make it look like gauzes
and anything a mummy would be wrapped up in.
[Eddie] Squad Ghouls, the face out of modeling chocolate, it's so creepy.
- I think it's just a showstopper. - Yeah.
[Eddie] But now they're covering it up.
The mummy looks like it had a nose job.
I wouldn't cover it any more than that.
[Reggie] It is coming together.
- [thunder rumbles] - One hour left.
No!
Look at all that mummy blood.
[Pege] These have been cooling for a couple hours.
Um, they don't feel hot anymore,
so I feel pretty confident that I can probably
use my X-Acto knife and cut them out, but I'm still a little bit nervous.
I'm not sure if I've waited long enough for them to cool down.
And I'm just hoping I have enough pieces to make it to the board.
All right.
Yeah.
It's a good solid bar.
It came out better than I had hoped for.
So, Candy Corn Killers I think is the furthest behind,
and they still have to add the twist.
[Brent] How is there time to build a whole second character right now?
I'm not getting a good feeling about this, you guys.
- This is a potential for a major wow moment... - [Aarti] Mmm-hmm.
- Or a complete disaster. - [Aarti] Mmm-hmm.
It doesn't have to be big,
but I think if it's something that would normally be found in Alcatraz...
[Brent] A rat, you know what I mean?
Like, a rat that's, like, been in his cell, it's been his buddy the whole time.
- [Pege] Yeah. - He's along for the ride.
So, I'm actually using a white sweet potato
for a rat friend.
Get some little appendages, and maybe get, like, a nice tail.
Ladies and gentlemen, we have a rat friend.
It's not going that well. The cake is really soft.
So...
It's harder to kind of work with, basically.
It's kind of moving with every movement I make.
Because the cake is warm, it's harder to put pressure on it to blend the seams.
[bleep]
Yeah, it's just too, uh...
It's too warm.
Yeah, it's too warm, guys. It's falling apart.
I'm done.
Joey, just go get me some toothpicks.
I promise you this can be fixed. Joey.
[Joey] I'm done.
[dramatic music plays]
[Joey] [bleep]
It's too warm, guys.
It's falling apart. I'm done.
Joey, just go get me some toothpicks.
I promise you this can be fixed. Joey.
[Pege] I watched him work too hard all day
to walk away from this whole challenge.
- Hey, Brent. - [Brent] What?
Stop what you're doing right now. Come help me with this.
I'm literally just trying to save this cake's life.
It's gutting for us that we're just left to be doing this
by ourselves, when we really need Joey.
[Joey sniffs] The whole cake, it's very warm.
So, you know, any type of movement,
there's a big possibility that it'll continue to do that. [sniffs]
[Joey] With my own business,
I have situations where something goes wrong
and I have to step away from it.
Right now, I feel overwhelmed and disappointed.
However, this isn't something that I'm doing by myself.
There's two other people on my team and I'm responsible
for making sure that the piece is something that they're proud of.
I need to make it happen.
Here, come here. Use acetate.
[Pege] When I see Joey come back, I am so relieved.
I hope he now will just work with us to get it finished,
and just put everything behind us.
[Joey] I'm using acetate sheets
to hold in the filling and the cake.
[thunder rumbles]
Oh, no.
Ten minutes, teams. Come on. Let's rush. Let's go, let's go.
Ten minutes. Oh, my gosh.
Uh, you know, time is not our friend right now.
I had planned to do both part of the wings out of sugar,
but now I'm just doing part sugar and part wafer, just for the sake of time.
And I'm still not 100% sure it's gonna make it.
At this point, I just feel like getting some wings up there
is better than no wings.
[Brent] Covering the board with brown sugar.
If we use brown sugar on the floor, it's gonna emulate dirt.
[Hannah] Ugh! No!
Hannah's bat is coming apart, and it looks like she's attaching the wings.
- I mean, she has minutes to spare here. - [Shinmin] Mmm.
And that twist has to make it onto the piece.
[Reggie] Keep going. Keep going. You got this.
Oh, my gosh. Get that wing on.
[Hannah] Okay.
[thunder rumbles]
[Zak] Time for a jailbreak.
Whoo!
[laughs]
Ah.
[exhales]
- [Pege] I'm actually really emotional right now. - Ugh. I'm sorry if I smell.
[thunder rumbles]
[Hannah] Once a prisoner of Alcatraz,
our mummy was executed, or so they thought.
He survived, and he hid for years in the laundry room.
The laundry room was really, really lonely for all those years,
so he made a friend, Mr. Bat.
And he decided to make a great escape.
And he took a laundry basket out to sea.
The head and the body is made of cake and modeling chocolate.
Our basket is made out of pumpkin.
We have our sugar bat and some sugar water along with buttercream water.
And our shark fins are also made of sugar.
You know, I'm trying to, like, be even-handed about it, but dang!
[all laughing]
This is spectacular.
Uh, our mummy is so life-like.
[all laugh]
Having never seen a mummy before.
Right, I can feel his relief and his victory
and almost, like, desperation with his thrust-out hand, you know, reaching for land.
It's just a really smart design.
I think the bat was a smart choice.
I mean, it ties everything back to the old creature theme.
But I feel like I want it to be a little bit more detailed.
Right now, it's just sugar work.
The fact that you chose peanuts to make those teeth,
it looks like they're really aged-looking, gruesome teeth.
Um, now, Hannah and Janet.
I feel like the work that you displayed here tonight,
just a little shy.
I know that you guys are capable of much, much more.
- You guys are a team. - Yes.
[Shinmin] And you should really work together
and highlight each other's work.
[Hannah] So, today, I chose to do an almond sourdough cake
to let the sourdough shine through.
And I have a tart raspberry jam
and a milk chocolate French buttercream
with some sliced toasted almonds inside.
I get a very distinct tang from your cake.
I love that little bright ribbon of raspberry in there.
It has a really nice little bit of acidity to it.
For me, you were so light-handed with the milk chocolate.
That's what I'm craving out of your cake.
I actually like the amount of chocolate flavor that you have going on here,
because I think anything else would be overpowering.
The only thing for me is that I wish I had a little citrusy in here.
I feel like even lemon would be really good in here as well.
Thank you so much, guys.
- Good job, Mom. - Yes.
- Good job, Dad. - Ah!
[Brent] Our vampire was apprehended.
His wings were cut off, and he was thrown into Alcatraz.
There he learned that by feasting on bats, he could re-grow new wings,
regain his strength, bend and break the bars,
and escape to fly away from Alcatraz.
The head is pumpkin, uh, all the bats on the ground are sweet potato.
Body is, uh, all cake. These are sugar bars.
Um, and the twist, uh, is this is his little friend, uh, that would visit his cell.
And his name is Nosfer-rat-tu.
- Mmm-hmm. - Nosfer-rat-tu.
[laughing]
Watching you guys was like watching a prison-break movie.
I was, like, "I don't know if they're gonna make it!"
But you did, so good job.
I was so excited about your prison bars,
'cause I thought, "You are putting him in a time and a place."
I don't think their impact is really coming through,
simply just because I don't see his arms kind of pulling them apart.
The thing that's throwing me off
is just when I think about a vampire,
I think of, like, dapperness, I think of he's always well-dressed.
Maybe a nice pin-stripe suit or like a orange kind of one-piece.
But still has a little bit of dapperness to him.
I feel like the wings that you have on the back are, like, upside down.
Um, the tips of the wings should be facing up.
And then he would look a lot more like a vampire.
But I feel like, Brent, you really saved the day with your carving.
- Oh, thank you. - [Shinmin] The face on this character
- is wonderful. - [Brent] Thank you.
[Shinmin] The exaggerated ears are wonderful. You didn't go wimpy on the twist.
Front and center, and really well-carved mouse there.
[Brent] Thank you.
- Oh. - That looks good.
Mmm.
[Brent] Superstar. Superstar.
[Joey] It is a chocolate sourdough cake.
It has a tart raspberry filling.
It's covered in a white chocolate buttercream.
This cake is dark like your vampire's soul.
- [all laughing] - It takes me to a dark, deep, wonderful place.
The white chocolate buttercream is a wonderful counterpart.
Sort of like an ebony, ivory, ying, yang kind of thing.
- And that tart raspberry... - [Joey] Yes.
[Aarti] ...is so bright and so juicy.
It has a really nice amount of acidity in there. It's really lovely.
It brings that tang.
And then it just finishes super refined,
because of the Dutch chocolate.
So, I will let Eddie talk so I can keep eating.
- There's nothing to say. - [all laughing]
That's the best compliment ever.
Ever!
This cake is about as perfect as you could get it.
- This is... - Wow.
[Eddie] ...spectacular.
My only knock is that I feel like it needs a little bit more
of that raspberry, because the chocolate, obviously, is very rich.
So you need something to kind of break up that party.
Other than that, thank you.
This cake is amazing.
- Thank you. - [Aarti] Thank you, guys.
- [Shinmin] Mmm-mmm. - [laughing]
- Wow. - Whoo!
We know where we can improve, so...
Yeah.
- Ah, but not on the cake. - [Joey] No!
[all laughing]
[Rodolfo] Here we have the last prisoner from Alcatraz.
The spoon has a meaning here because this is how he went through the walls
to get to the bathroom.
The only thing he found that could float was this amazing toilet.
But he has a little more problems
because there's a lot of sharks on the water.
[Shinmin] Ah!
All right. So, what can I say? Your pumpkin toilet is the sh...
- [laughs] - Ah!
- [all laugh] - [clapping]
I will take that as a compliment.
- Bomb. - [Eddie laughs]
No. Obviously, the pumpkin toilet is what stands out the most.
I especially love the shading to give it kind of that very used look...
- [laughs] - you should say.
The only disappointing thing to me is that the back of the toilet,
it seems unfinished.
There was definitely one moment where I thought,
"There's no coming back from this."
And you turned it around. This looks very controlled. It does not look panicked.
Perfect face. Really, really beautiful expression of the fur.
The one thing that does bother me a little bit
is that the storyline, I do think, is a little confusing.
He has a spoon, and he's in the toilet.
And the shark doesn't look like it belongs on this tableau.
I agree.
Because your werewolf is so realistic, the shark looks even more animated.
Just watch for that.
You want to match it, so that it feels like it's the same moment
and the same artist.
[Shinmin] This is honestly the first time I've ever eaten cake
out of a toilet.
So, I went for the dark chocolate.
So I did a dark chocolate ganache with orange zest.
For the sourdough cake, I add pumpkin for Halloween.
And for a little kick, all the spices, the cinnamon, the cloves.
And to finish it, I used Italian buttercream with pumpkin as well.
- Who made this cake? - I did.
This cake is delicious.
[exhales]
[Eddie] Absolutely delicious.
I love the addition, the chocolate that you chose,
'cause it's not overly sweet, and it's not too bitter, it's the perfect balance.
The orange zest makes me wanna keep going back, back, and back, and back, and back
and back, and back, and back again.
- [laughs] - [Eddie] I will say this.
I want the cake itself to be just a tad bit sweeter, though.
Maybe if you had one more layer of this ganache.
- [Rodolfo] Okay. - So that it's more balanced in here.
Then it would just keep coming back
with, like, that boost of sweetness.
But that gentle flavor of pumpkin really comes through
because of the spices that you add,
and I think that clove is a really good touch.
Thank you.
You know that giant spoon on your piece?
I would like to eat your cake with that giant spoon.
- [laughs] - Oh.
- Oh, no, no, no, no, no! - [all laughing]
[Aarti] I'm kidding! I'm just kidding.
Um, you are very adept with flavors here.
I actually think that you have just the right amount
of ganache in it, because I find that chocolate and orange
to be a scene-stealer.
Just that one ribbon going through your cake, I think it's perfect.
Here's the only thing.
Since we're talking about celebrating San Francisco
and celebrating that combination of sourdough and chocolate,
I wish that there was one sour element in here.
Something there, where you sort of...
It's kind of a little doff of the hat to San Francisco.
But, dude, the spoon. Later.
- All right. - [Aarti] Me.
- Thank you very much. - [Rodolfo] Thank you.
- Thank you, guys. - Thank you so much.
- [Rodolfo] Thank you. - This was great.
[Aarti] You okay, Eddie?
- Hmm? - [Aarti] You wanna stay here for a minute?
- [Shinmin] Oh, he's not quite ready. - [all laughing]
I'll give it to them. I'll be back.
We'll be back for you. We'll be back for you.
[Eddie] One more bite.
- Good job, guys. - [Julia and Tammy] Thank you.
- [Tammy] You totally rocked it with the pumpkin, Rod. - Thank you.
Zak inspired you to create the perfect paranormal jailbreak today.
And you scared us some inspired cakes.
But one team delivered a cake so impressive in taste and design.
It's not only worthy of a pardon, it's worthy of a win.
Congratulations goes to Squad Ghouls.
[Janet laughs]
[Eddie] You mastered the mummy
and served us a tangy slice of cake
that was really enjoyable, good job.
Thank you.
That leaves Candy Corn Killers and Pastry Pirates.
One of you will be going home.
Pastry Pirates.
You escaped what could have been a cake disaster
and brought us a beautiful and tasty cake.
But your story was a bit confusing,
and your twist was not successful
and felt incongruous with the rest of your cake.
Candy Corn Killers.
You also showed real heart in this competition,
pushing through despite the struggles.
Brent, the details on your pumpkin work was really impressive.
And, Joey, your cake was devilishly good.
The design, though, didn't quite match the expectations
of your cool story.
Candy Corn Killers, we saw the blood, sweat, and tears
that went into your vampire cake.
But unfortunately, it wasn't enough. We're sorry. You're done on Halloween Wars.
- Thank you. - Thank you, guys, so much.
Thank you.
We went through so much, and we were working harder than I had ever worked
with anybody before. [sniffs]
[whispers] Sorry.
[whispers] Bye. Bye, guys. Bye, bye, bye. [speaking normally] Thank you.
[Pege] We put so much heart in it at the end.
I just know that we didn't have enough of that from the beginning,
and I knew why we were going.
[Eddie] Squad Ghouls, Pastry Pirates.
You're the final two teams to move on to the main competition.
Y'all ready?
- [laughing] - [all] Yes.
- [Eddie] Next time on Halloween Wars... - [cork pops]
- [woman] It's a party. - Ah!
She's gone full exorcist.
[Eddie] ...Zak goes into supernatural scare mode...
- [all exclaiming] - Whoo!
[Eddie] ...as the six qualifying teams face off.
- [woman 1] Ew! - [woman 2] Nasty!
Whoa!
[Eddie] The struggle is real.
She's not gonna make another. There's no way.
Ooh, they heard that.