Episode list

The competition kicks off for 12 bakers with holiday decorated quick bread wreaths. In the main heat, the competitors must make a winter hat cake to charm the judges.

The 10 bakers must highlight a nut or seed in a holiday dessert. Then, the competitors must use a fundamental holiday ingredient in unseasonable desserts, like icebox cakes or fruit tarts.

The nine bakers make holiday cookie-topped mini pies. Then, it's pie pandemonium as the competitors celebrate fall with flavor combos such as pumpkin-cider and chestnut-chocolate in cream pies, lattice pies and more.

Bakers are challenged to turn breakfast items, like French toast, into Thanksgiving desserts. Then, the competitors team up to create Friendsgiving potluck-inspired desserts to impress the judges.

The seven bakers get advent calendars filled with different types of chocolate to inspire them to make desserts with a surprise inside. Then, for the main heat, the competitors must bake one delicious cheesecake with three different flavors for the judges.

Jesse Palmer challenges the six competitors to work in teams to create jelly doughnut-inspired desserts, a twist on traditional Hanukkah jelly doughnuts. Then, the bakers get creative with the yummiest, gooiest holiday decorated upside-down cakes to satisfy the judges.

Host Jesse Palmer asks the five bakers to pull out all the stops and create the most-delicious, over-the-top version of a holiday trifle. Then, the classics continue in the main heat when the competitors make the ultimate Charlotte royale for judges Nancy Fuller, Duff Goldman and Carla Hall, as well as the king of Christmas -- Santa Claus.

Jesse Palmer kicks things off by asking the final four competitors to honor the holiday tree in the form of a beautifully decorated macaron tower. In the Christmas past, present and future main heat, the bakers must feature an assigned icing style in a stunning cake that evokes their assigned time period -- marzipan from the past, buttercream from the present or mirror glaze from the future. In the end, the judges will decide the one baker who will be crowned Holiday Baking Champion and walk away $25,000 richer.

In this holiday special, judges Nancy Fuller, Duff Goldman and Carla Hall look back at how the final four bakers made it to the finale. They reveal the best bakes of the season, some of the slip-ups, which bakers stood out and who had a roller coaster ride. Plus, they give an exciting behind-the-scenes view into how the show is made and how the judges came to some of their toughest decisions.