When RaChelle Hubsmith was testing out her bread roll recipe, she didn’t know what her husband and her youngest son would think. She had put ube — a purple yam — into her dough, added chai spices and rolled out small rosettes, topping it off with honey butter.
But the two people she often cooks for these days are picky eaters who stick to food groups like chicken nuggets and pizza and chocolate chip cookies. That hasn’t stopped Hubsmith, a real estate agent of 22 years, from flexing her culinary skills. She is a serial food show competitor, after all.
“It’s the kind of experience that our family goes through all the time with me because I’m constantly making dinners that revolve around a competition,” she said jokingly in an interview with the Deseret News.
Her Chai Ube Rosette Rolls won the National Festival of Breads championship in 2019. Over the span of a decade, she has competed in nearly 30 cooking competitions, with no goal of stopping — and you can see her most recent competition unfold on Dec. 26, when “Bake It ’Til You Make It” hits Food Network.
An undying love for baking
Although her love for these contests is relatively new, the Utah resident’s passion for cooking goes back to when she was a child.
Hubsmith describes her mother as “the queen of hosting family gatherings.” The title came with the responsibility of cooking all day and organizing a big feast for all the cousins and aunts and uncles.
Her mother baked everything — from little decorated lady cakes to pumpkin rolls.
The young Hubsmith was also put to work: “I got to dump things in the bowl. And the best part was getting to lick the beaters when we were done.”
Hubsmith didn’t revisit this passion until she had three children of her own.
“I realized I wanted to make them feel special on their birthdays and come up with really fun custom designs of what would make them smile,” she said.
Utah local to participate in Food Network’s ‘Bake It ’Til You Make It’
In her latest adventure, Hubsmith joins six other contestants on Food Network’s new docu-series “Bake It ’Til You Make It.”
Narrated by master cake artist Duff Goldman, the show combines two of Hubsmith’s favorite things: “reality TV shows and baking competitions,” as the chefs are filmed in their homes, she said.
“It was so fun for (the filming crew) to come into my house. They were changing my lighting and following me around everywhere,” she says, promising plenty of laughs and gravity-defying structures on the show.
The participants are a mixed bag of pros and amateurs, including Mony Alderman, a former football player turned baker from New Castle, Delaware; Lili Clinger, a first-time competitor from Las Cruces, New Mexico; Maythe Del Angel, a professional baker from San Antonio, Texas; and Sumera Syed, a nanny from Dallas, Texas, who found her passion for baking, according to an emailed press release.
What does it take to win a food competition?
Usually, during a competition, a participant will follow a prompt, create a dish, and submit the recipe alongside a photo, Hubsmith explained. Some competitions recreate the recipe, and others judge it on what’s available.
She recalls entering her first few contests and not winning anything at all. Her determination to do better got the best of her as she began paying attention to the details — the judges were looking not just for great techniques, but for a creative and fun-sounding recipe, too.
So, what does it take to win a food competition? Hubsmith says that “a positive attitude” is crucial.
“I believe in the law of abundance,” she said. “If you’re willing to give, you’re going to receive,” noting that she’s worked alongside people in the “baking competition world” who are never willing to share tips or answer questions, as well as those who offer up recipes and new techniques.
“It’s not really dog eats dog. There’s plenty to go around for everybody,” Hubsmith added.
“Bake It ’Til You Make It” premieres on Dec. 26 at 10 p.m. MST, with new episodes airing every Monday.