SALT LAKE CITY — As a jack-of-all-trades baker with over 20 food allergies, Emerlie Miller is used to improvising in the kitchen.

This skill came in handy when the Utah cake artist, owner of My Sugar Rush bakery in Salt Lake City, competed on a new season of “Holiday Wars,” set to premiere Sunday at 9 p.m. on Food Network.

“You just have to kind of fly blindly, which I’m already used to doing, where you can’t taste test things,” Miller said. “You just have to make it and know that it’s going to work. I base a lot of my recipes on science.”

Miller, who specializes in wedding cakes, applied to be a cake artist on the Christmas baking show, but was cast as her team’s sugar artist and pastry chef after Food Network found out about her experience working with isomalt, a sugar substitute.

“Isomalt is a very rare skill to have and they have a hard time casting for that position, so to not only be considered good enough as a cake artist, but to also be able to step into something even harder to do with isomalt, that was really cool,” Miller said.

The Utah baker was part of the season’s only all-female team, the Rebelves. Miller and a team of her friends competed last year on Food Network’s “Santa’s Baking Blizzard,” but this time her team was chosen for her.

“That was a very big challenge,” Miller said. “You go and do this show and you meet these people and then you’re immediately supposed to figure out each other’s strengths and weaknesses, and you’re getting to know your teammates at the same time that you’re doing these huge challenges that are just taking everything out of you.”

Competitors have to work fast and have very clean work while handling the pressures of being on TV, according to Miller. She said competing on the show was the hardest challenge she has ever had.

“I know my own skills, I know my speed, I know my style, I know all of that,” Miller said. “But to also work with other people you don’t know and to make that cohesive, oh my gosh, it’s a tough challenge.”

Salt Lake City baker Emerlie Miller, center right, competes with the Rebelves team on Food Network’s “Holiday Wars.” | Food Network

Miller said she was excited to meet actress Raven-Symone, the new host of “Holiday Wars.” Many will recognized her from “That’s So Raven,” the Disney Channel original series from the early aughts.

“She’s just full of energy,” Miller said. “She was always entertaining us on the set.”

It was also amazing to show her work to judges Shinmin Li and Erin Acevedo, Miller said.

“It was nice to ... try and show all of them what I could do, and also to have them taste all these pastry elements that I couldn’t eat myself,” Miller said. “That was very interesting when these are professional foodies that I was talking to.”

Miller started baking as a hobby shortly after high school and was a self-taught baker for several years. She then worked at a couple of bakeries before attending Bonnie Gordon College of Confectionary Arts in Toronto.

Since then, she has kept busy running her Salt Lake City business, including managing an Instagram account with over 20,000 followers as well as a YouTube channel, in addition to teaching classes.

“I do a lot with my time,” Miller said.

Salt Lake City baker Emerlie Miller competes on Food Network’s “Holiday Wars.” | Food Network

When Miller first worked at a bakery, she was treated poorly and told she wasn’t a good cake decorator, she said. Since then, Miller has always wanted to prove what she can do as a professional competitor.

“That’s something that has really driven me throughout the years is to prove that, yes, I can do this and I can get good compliments back on my work,” Miller said. “That’s a really big deal, and I’ve spent years becoming a jack of all trades to be able to prove that to people.”

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It would mean a lot to Miller to win “Holiday Wars” and become a Food Network champion, she said.

“I used to work at a bakery that had won ‘Cupcake Wars’ back in the day,” Miller said. “I have a lot of friends who have won different Food Network shows, and I want to be one of those people.”

Miller said she hopes to compete in more Food Network and local competitions in the future.

“There’s a certain energy about it, and being able to meet other people who are extremely passionate about making edible artwork, it’s a really fun industry to be in,” Miller said. “I just hope to continue to do that and get my name out there, and I want people to recognize me for having those skills. It’s a lot of hard work, so you want people to notice, for sure.”

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