When Adesuwa Elaiho was a little girl, she pretended to be a contestant on cooking shows; now, she actually is one! Adesuwa is one of the 12 bakers competing on the Food Network's "Halloween Baking Championship." On this episode, she shares the inside scoop about life on the set of a baking reality show--from the time pressure to what happens when your cake falls apart; how she felt about being judged for her bakes, and her nervousness about how she'd be portrayed after the show was edited. Adesuwa is a classically-trained chef (she has four degrees from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris), so creating gory, Halloween-themed treats stretched her beyond her comfort zone! But she came away from the experience feeling validated and grateful.
In this episode:
03:33--Adesuwa's childhood dreams about being on the Food Network
04:56--Her strategy to prepare to be on the Halloween Baking Championship
06:30--The challenges of baking under time pressure
10:40--How the contestants worked together and agreed not to "sabotage" each other
13:34--How a classically-trained chef created gory, Halloween-themed desserts
15:42--Adesuwa's thoughts about being judged on the show
20:14--Baking with cameras constantly in your face
27:39--Getting into the right frame of mind each day before taping the show
34:13--Adesuwa's tips for home bakers
Want to know more about Adesuwa?
Want to know more about "What It's Like To..."?
When Adesuwa Elaiho was a little girl, she pretended to be a contestant on cooking shows; now, she actually is one! Adesuwa is one of the 12 bakers competing on the Food Network's "Halloween Baking Championship." On this episode, she shares the inside scoop about life on the set of a baking reality show--from the time pressure to what happens when your cake falls apart; how she felt about being judged for her bakes, and her nervousness about how she'd be portrayed after the show was edited. Adesuwa is a classically-trained chef (she has four degrees from Le Cordon Bleu in Paris), so creating gory, Halloween-themed treats stretched her beyond her comfort zone! But she came away from the experience feeling validated and grateful.
In this episode:
03:33--Adesuwa's childhood dreams about being on the Food Network
04:56--Her strategy to prepare to be on the Halloween Baking Championship
06:30--The challenges of baking under time pressure
10:40--How the contestants worked together and agreed not to "sabotage" each other
13:34--How a classically-trained chef created gory, Halloween-themed desserts
15:42--Adesuwa's thoughts about being judged on the show
20:14--Baking with cameras constantly in your face
27:39--Getting into the right frame of mind each day before taping the show
34:13--Adesuwa's tips for home bakers
Want to know more about Adesuwa?
Want to know more about "What It's Like To..."?
Elizabeth: Hello, and welcome to What It's Like To, the podcast that lets you walk in someone else's shoes and live vicariously through their unique experiences. I'm your host, Elizabeth Pearson Garr. In each episode, I'll be asking a new interviewee all the what, why, when, and where's of how they do what they do.
If you've been listening to this podcast for a while, you may know that I used to work at the Food Network right when it was first starting up. I've always loved cooking and baking and I still love watching reality shows. So I'm really excited about my guest today.
Adesuwa Elaiho is one of 12 chefs competing on the Food Network's Halloween Baking Championship. Adesuwa is the founder and executive chef of Asukar, a premier pastry company in San Antonio, Texas. She has a degree in food science from Colorado State University and studied culinary arts at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris. Adesuwa, welcome to my podcast.
Adesuwa: Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
Elizabeth: I'm really excited to talk to you. So, we have a lot of things I'd love to hear about, but first of all, I'm wondering about being on this show. Do you feel like you could kind of summarize it in a word or a phrase? What did it feel like being there? Was it overwhelming? Was it exciting? Stressful?
Can you even summarize it?
Adesuwa: Yeah, for me, the season was validation, is what my word of the season is, is validation. And it was a dream come true.
Elizabeth: So, is this something you've been wanting to do for a long time to be on a show just to get more visibility or is it just so you could get a greater challenge or had you been trying to be on a show for a while?
Adesuwa: No, so as a small child, instead of watching cartoons, I would sit in my house and watch Food Network all day, and, watch Paula Dean, like, religiously. And I was like, can you watch a cartoon? And I'm like, no, I cannot watch a cartoon, I have to keep up with, like, Rachel Ray's, you know, 30-minute meal, whatever it was at the time.
And so... I used to make jokes with friends, about being on a show I had some different YouTube things I used to do and I would say, Hey Food Network, thanks for tuning in and watching me. And then, also when I was a small kid, me and my cousin Bryant used to have the A and B cooking show and we would pretend like we were, we cooked breakfast in the morning, we'd have our own little TV show.
But I really never thought that. You know, I think like you want something, but I never really took any action to be on the show. so for me, it was a great day when I was reached out to saying, Hey, we see you. And for me again, like just being seen by food network to me was huge validation and just years of hard work coming together.
Elizabeth: So, it was super exciting, obviously, to get that call and then to be cast in the show. I had read, actually, I wonder if I can read it, you said, I worked really hard to think through different scenarios the judges might throw at us, but of course there was no way to know exactly what we would encounter.
So, what were you thinking. I mean, you knew it was Halloween, but it could kind of be anything from there, right? Halloween and baking, that still leaves a pretty broad range. How did you prepare?
Adesuwa: So, my strategy was, to binge watch literally every single season that was available. So, I downloaded Discovery+ and I watched, they don't have season one on there, but I watched season two to season eight in a very short period of time and just tried to understand what was coming up for the show.
I was, very nervous about, like I was cautious of when I first initially Started looking at coming onto the show. I didn't really know too much what it was all about, So I was really relieved when I noticed that it was a lot about flavors and then combinations of flavors as much as it was decorating.
I'm a wedding cake decorator. I do beautiful Artsy things we do very like abstract designs at Asukar, so this was definitely a step out of my comfort zone, so I really had to dig deep and like, figure out, okay, how do I make a clown cake? Like, what does that even look like? Like, in my bakery, I don't use fondant at all.
I really try to stray away from it. I try to take like, realistic food, like this past weekend, we did a steak cake. So, I wanted a T bone steak. mine was made out of buttercream. So, I really try to take like a fondant design and figure out how to make it into a buttercream design.
But that also eats into your time. So it's kind of like, what do you do? if you have no time, and I think that was the most challenging part was. The time for sure.
Elizabeth: Yeah. I'm sure cause they have that clock ticking. I mean, as soon as he tells you what the challenge is, the seconds start ticking down.
Adesuwa: And I think like in my head, like, I had never done anything like this in my life. So, I didn't really know what to expect. But I was like, there's no way that they're really giving people 90 minutes to get this stuff done, right? In my mind, I was like, that's made for TV. Um, no, they tell you it's 90 minutes, it's 90 minutes, like, that's what you have to figure it out.
So it's really impressive what all of us have been able to come up with in such a limited amount of time. And then I always had thought, you know, there has to be some time for us to, conceptualize what we want to do, but really it's like, here's your challenge, here's your stuff, go bake. And it's kind of like, okay, cool, let me dig deep and try to figure out what I can come up with in such a short period of time.
Elizabeth: Yeah. So that amazes me too, because you might have 90 minutes, two hours, three hours. And if they say, make this clown cake, make these gory donuts. And in this show, too, they have a story that goes along with it for people that might have not watched the baking challenge before. There's a character and a story that you need to weave into these bakes.
And so you're not just coming up with this amazing bake, but you have to come up with a story that goes along with your colors and your flavors. So you have to think a lot in this amount of time while you're creating. And so did you just say you, you can't do any of that ahead of time? You're doing that all in that two or three hours?
Adesuwa: All in the minute, it's all coming together. And I think a big piece of this was like, you make your bake and then you go to judging. So during that time, you kind of have this moment of being like, okay, here's what I did. So for me on the one with my cake collapse, it was like, my cake's falling apart.
Like, what am I going to do? So, okay, fine. I got the cake out. I did what I had to do, but then it was like, okay, now between me and judging, I have time to figure out how I'm going to spin this to where, you know, I might be able to pitch it, because the judges don't know what happened during our bakes.
They're not there during our bakes, so they don't know that my cake fell apart. They just are seeing the results of what I did in that, I think it was three hours. So you have a little bit of time during your judging. Hopefully some people are a little bit more long winded than others. You pray and you get back there and you're just kind of like, okay, here's this elaborate story I've created for you.
So part of you is like, I want to go first because I think my cake's going to fall apart. But the other part of me is like, when you go last, I have time to like figure this all out in my head, wrap my brain around it. So, it was honestly like one of the most challenging things that I've ever done in my life.
But like I told you, I just walked away just feeling so validated in what I do and capable and confident. And so it was really positive experience.
Elizabeth: That's fantastic. Yeah, I'm really impressed, extra impressed now that you guys had to create all that stuff on the fly. But I figured you must have to in a way, because, in an episode that I recently watched, they give the recent winner a reward and this one guy chose ube as his cake flavor and people are like ube.
Why would you choose ube? And it seemed like a surprise to everybody, you know that he just came up with that He didn't just choose chocolate or something more typical and then everyone goes running to the back to this wall of ingredients together I'll take the yeast I’ll take this and the coconut and whatever And I sometimes wonder, are you all banging into each other?
And what if everybody wants, you know, the cake flour or something? How are you, how are you gathering all your ingredients?
Adesuwa: Yeah, so, we have like some of the key essentials on your stations like sugar we have we all have our own little sugar, and then there's a little bit more like on the shelf, and God bless food network and their team and the staff and the production company just everybody there
I figured that they would want us to like struggle and fail because it'd be good TV. They did not. They wanted us to be as successful as we possibly could be. And they were just so kind to me the whole time that I was there. And I wish I could go on top of the rooftops and shout how kind this production was to us because it meant a lot.
And so you run to the back and you're trying to grab whatever you think you're going to need. So that initial run to the back is real. Like that's us literally saying, okay, I know I'm going to need cookie cutters for my cookie. So therefore, I'm going to grab all the cookie cutters that I think I'm going to want.
I'm going to put them on my station. Well, I want to emphasize to you that we are also friends. I have a group chat text with my cast mates and we text each other about two to three times a day still since production. So we're really close and we cheer each other on and we, give each other advice and just have become really good friends.
So one of the things that we made a promise to each other was that we're not going to sabotage. If you're going to win, you're going to win fair. Right? We don't, we want everybody to do their personal best. So, if for whatever reason, like let's say I had the coconut and somebody needed coconut, then they would call and say, I need coconut.
And then hopefully I hear them. Cause I'm also in my own little world, my own little bubble focusing on myself. But they'll be like, I need coconut. And I say, okay, I have the coconut. And so they would run over to your station. And so that's why you see sometimes in the show, us running around it's because we're running with someone else's station, trying to get
the ingredient that we need per se. So that's kind of how it worked. I really didn't have any issues with anything like not having access to it. it was just a challenge like it's a true true challenge Like my cake fell apart in episode 2 and I can tell you right now like in the real world I would have thrown that cake away and started all over again but there it's like, okay I have to figure this out and god bless Stacy for running over and helping me and Bring in my acetate like that was real
she was like my next door neighbor and she saw me losing it and was like, what's going on with you.
Elizabeth: I noticed that. And then she said, that fridge is open. You should go there. I had made a note of that even from the first episode when maybe weren't as close. I don't know how much time you spent together ahead of time, but I made a note like people are really supportive of one another and this is so nice.
It's a competition quote unquote, but it's not like. Survivor or something, you know, like, let's just try to scheme and manipulate to get the person like you really were supportive of one another. And it's lovely to hear that you're still friends and supportive. Like you have a network now of other bakers around the country.
Adesuwa: It's really important, I think, to have a community. at first, you didn't know because you get there and you're kind of like, okay, what is it going to be like, or what kind of competitors we want to be. But I think we just really all clicked very well.
it was always, like, really sad to see, people go. But also, too, realizing that, you know, it's really truly about your last bake. It didn't matter what you had done before. It mattered how this one turned out.
Elizabeth: And it's not a kind of like, Oh, I tell my kids about grades in school. Like they're not a measure of your human worth, but just, they're just a measure of what's happening right now. So that's what it is. It's just a measure of that particular bake. You're still a great baker.
Adesuwa: Exactly. It's just the moment. It's a moment. But where my mindset is on this is that we are truly all winners. no one lost anything. there were 12 people who beat out probably, I don't know, thousands of people who wanted to be on this show who probably went through the process just like the rest of us.
And we were the ones, the lucky ones who landed it. there's not a loser. They are nobody lost anything. We all had our moment. it's a huge blessing for all of us. We're all winners.
Elizabeth: So you mentioned, you're very classically trained. you have uh, four certificates from Le Cordon Bleu and that you, you know, have wedding cakes and you're a pastry chef and everything, but this show is pretty gory. I mean, fun gory, but in the first episode, they introduce everybody.
And some of your competitors love making these really gory desserts. Did you sometimes feel like, wow, I. That's not really how my brain works. How am I going to step it up and think about broken bones and bloody fingers and that kind of thing? Or did you just kind of get into that mindset pretty quickly?
Adesuwa: My dad, last week we watched it together, me and my dad and my mom and my daughter, and my dad said, you know, Adesuwa, you are at a disadvantage.
I said, why? He said, because I never took you to a carnival. So you have no point of reference for any of this. He's like, you never have been to a carnival. You've never seen any of this stuff. You never had a fried Oreo. You’re living this carnival for the very first time in your life because you have no point of reference.
Whereas some of the contestants were like, yeah, me and my dad would go to carnivals at three times a year and we would check out our house. I also grew up overseas in Europe. So like Halloween is an American holiday. It's not a European holiday. So, Halloween for me in Europe was very different than Halloween
stateside. What I think my advantage was is that I love scary movies, but I have an 11-year-old daughter, a young daughter. So as I, she's been growing up, I've kind of backed off of, you know, the kind of things that I watch on TV so that she doesn't have nightmares at night.
Elizabeth: Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I hear you on
Adesuwa: So I think it's that line of like, okay, how do you do something that you're not so familiar with?
And I think that was what this was. I'm Christian and prayed a lot and I was kind of praying that God would just stretch me and I wanted to try some new things. And so I think I fell into the things that I knew. And luckily, like I said, some of the contestants were really kind. Mandy taught me how to make an eyeball while we were there and an ear and showed me how to make an amyotolical heart in the room while we were just sitting around bored.
She's like, here's how to do this. so I definitely felt stretched and I definitely felt, okay, well, what do I know how to do well?
Well, and definitely I airbrushed things all day in my real life, so I was like, I can airbrush, I can shape some things, here's what I know how to do, and I was like, okay, how do we add a little bit of blood and guts to that,
Elizabeth: How did you feel about the whole judging experience? I know they were having fun too, and they get dressed up but there's the fact of, it's pretty intense.
You've had a limited amount of time to get this thing together and then you have to go present it. Did that feel nerve wracking to get judged?
Adesuwa: I'm a perfectionist. if you ask the producers, you ask the judges, you ask John, they'll all tell you that that was one thing that they kept saying to me. you have to check your perfectionism, and realize that it's not going to be perfect because you don't have enough time to make it perfect.
So you have to be okay with what you do. So I think when I would get done baking something, even the things that I got rave reviews on, I would always walk away with thinking about the 15 things that didn't count perfect [00:16:00] in that dish, Then you go into judging and you're like ready to get beat up because they had about, I don't know, maybe four or five professionals there right.
So I'm one of the professionals. I also think I had like the most education, everybody there. I need to be able to walk in here with like the best of the best, right? Because I have the technique. I have the knowledge. I have the education and you get into judging and then you're just kind of like, what are you going to say to me?
on top of that, I watched Carla Hall as a small child back in the day, on top chef. So I grew up. She was one of the people that I admired and have followed her career and try to follow her principles best I can, and it's really inspired my career, and to be judged by Carla Hall, somebody that you truly admire, is hard as well, but I do have to say that, for me personally, my experience, they were very kind, the show's edited, of course, highly edited.
Our judging probably went on for about 20 minutes, but they, um,
Elizabeth: 20 Minutes per contestant?
Adesuwa: yeah, about 20 minutes. Like, each judge had their piece, and they gave you a lot of good feedback, but it was mostly, for me, it was, like, this works beautifully. And if there was something not great, it was like, Hey, next time that you do this, do it with this in mind.
So like the powdered sugar comment on my donuts, which I had already known it was messed up before I got there, hey, like, next time, sift your powdered sugar, you know better, right? And I'm like, yeah, I know. I ran out of time.
Like, yeah, we know you ran out of time. But just next time, you should sift your powdered sugar. So it wasn't ever something super, like, negative, and it was never made out to be a personal attack. Like, I never felt like they were personally saying, like, you're not worthy or you're not good.
It was just like, you know, hey, in this bake, here's the opportunities that I see.
like Carla Hall called me the flavor queen on episode one. because every one of my bakes had 15 items in it. So it was a season of validation for me because I walked away from that feeling very, very positive every single time, no matter how hard the bake was,
they were so sweet and so kind, all of them from Stephanie to Zach to all of them have the best advice and just. Really, really great people.
Elizabeth: Do you feel like any of the advice you can take to your business or was it all more just for kind of fun? Halloween or theme type desserts.
Adesuwa: I've taken things from their feedback already and implemented it into the things that I do here. I had a routine of like, Baking, reflecting, going to judging, coming back, and I wrote down all the comments, bad and good, in a notebook, I still have that notebook, so I wrote down all my comments that they gave me, and then I wrote myself a little message, you know, journaled about how I processed it, on some things they might have said, hey, I think you should consider adding some salt to this, or, you know, etc, etc.
More acid or less acid or whatever so I've come back since then and as when I'm remaking some of these things with a lot of the components in my bakes like my raspberry jam I make that all the time that's one of our three main jams The two cakes that we had they were there Stephanie said girl, you can bake a good cake all day.
And her comment was last [00:19:00] time about I forgot I didn't have that one in my notebook, are you flirting with me? Like that was a cute
Elizabeth: Yeah, that was so cute. I love
Adesuwa: super cute comment So like any type of critiques that they had for me I did and then like with the German chocolate cake now I do use three types of coconut because I did it there and she liked it so I I've taken that home with me now when you order German chocolate cake It has three different types of coconut in there.
So yeah, if I had spoken to you prior to the production, like even a month before the production, I wouldn't have known I was going to be there. So it was just kind of like a huge opportunity and that's what I took it as was like this is a huge opportunity for me to grow and for me to become more confident and to trust myself and so that's how I took experience home with me.
Elizabeth: Was it strange to be at your station and creating and then to have cameras coming into your face or to have John, who's the host, come up and say, Hey Adesuwa, I see that you're making this and you don't have to be witty and to have some conversation. did you sometimes feel like, wait, I'm focusing and by the way, this is my time and the minutes are clicking down, did that throw you off ever?
Adesuwa: Umm, no, I mean the cameras they were there was a lot of them but it was just an experience.
Elizabeth: get used to them.
Adesuwa: I think you do now I'm kind of like wishing that they would come home with me. Cause sometimes I'm like, Oh, I'll make a video for Tik Tok.
And I'm like, I wouldn't need a camera crew. Um, no, they, but they weren't like in your space or anything like that. You do have to like communicate a lot with them. So I think that was strange because I'm a very silent like European kitchens are quiet kitchens. So I'm very used to like a quiet kitchen so I just wanted to like be quiet and concentrate and think and you have to like verbalize what you're doing or verbalize like Okay, I'm gonna go to the oven because the cameraman needs to know that.
Okay, let's go to the oven or, Hey, I'm going to go pull my, if you could tell them where you're going. So that was something that you had to [00:21:00] consciously be aware of. I think John was great. He was very helpful. during that bake where my cake collapsed, he came over and spoke to me for a little bit because
Adesuwa: I had a meltdown and I was upset with myself. So I was like, how does a person with like literally 17 international awards for cakes go home on a cake challenge. Like that was just going to be the worst day ever. It's like, how embarrassing. That's what you're saying. You're like, you're never going to sell another cake again.
Like who's going to trust you to make a cake if you can't even make cake on TV.
Adesuwa: Right. So I had, I had my moment and then I had gone away. And then John came over and asked me how I had after the cake, Stacy and I had fixed the cake and They're like, just take a minute and like gather yourself because you have no time.
But really my cake was falling apart. So there's nothing I could have really done in the first place. And, he came over and just kind of talked to me, Hey, how's it going? You're going to be okay. You're not the first one that's happened to you. Like, don't worry.
he was just very, very supportive. So sometimes I feel like the conversations with John were very, necessary and timely based off of what we were going through and I didn't really mind him and he was really fun to be around, when you get into a situation that you've always kind of wanted and then you get it.
It's just for me, it was like, I'm gonna not take this for granted. I'm going to embrace every minute. Like when I went to do my interview, when I went to, have lunch that day, whatever it was that I was doing, I tried to show gratitude to this team, like the people that were working there, to myself, to my castmates, to just be like, I'm grateful to be here.
Like, I want to be here. I chose to be here and I've been chosen to be here. And I really didn't take anything for granted. And I'm happy that I didn't take anything for granted, That was most important to me.
Elizabeth: I think that attitude comes through to but everyone has those moments and it's a very human experience to Oh, my cake is falling. And then you have that sort of good cop, bad cop thing going on in your head and you start doubting yourself. I mean, we all have that.
Right. And you're like, why is this voice being so mean to me right now? I'm. in the middle of this live show. I mean, not live, but the clock is ticking and, you want us to keep focusing, but I mean, we all have that, especially, I talk a lot on the show about perfectionism, and that can be to our own detriment. it's such a human core experience, but you got through it. And I'm glad that John could be a help on that. Cause often on the show, what we see is, his really funny quips, you know, and he's doing these quick interactions with people, but he's also there to support people it sounds like at times of need.
Adesuwa: Yeah. And there was more than one disaster. That was a disaster that got shown and they showed it in a very nice way because I think it was a whole lot worse than what you guys got to see at home.
Watching that episode, I was so nervous going into it. I had a bottle of champagne. I was like really nervous. I was like, I'm gonna look so stupid on TV. And they, edited it, like. God bless the production company. It was edited so kind, in a way, which they told me before the producers were like, we're not going to let you go out there and look stupid. We want you to be the professional that we know you are. No matter how bad or good it is, we're not going to let you look bad, you know? And they edited it in such a way that it looked like I was a genius several times on different things. And I think, what I was proud of is honestly, when he said, I think he said like 20 minutes on the clock.
And I was like, I have to frost this cake, like, that was really, I had 20 minutes on the clock to frost my cake, so when it was all said and done, even though I do think it looks a little bit sloppy, I was like, okay, Adesuwa you had a cake fall apart, fixed it, frosted it,
decorated it, got it done in 20 minutes, and then you had to wait for judging, Whatever period of time that was, which I don't even remember, and you did it, and they got it, and they loved it. So, that for me, again, was that validation, that, okay, like, I'm good. So, now I find myself in sticky situations here where things aren't quite working out at home, with my home bakes, then I'm like, okay, well, hey, you did a cake in 20 minutes.
you can figure this out. Like, you can do this. you literally done the impossible, and yet somehow prevailed,
I think where the emotion for me on that bake was like, I'm out of time at the time before Stacy came over, I was like, I'm done.
Like, I was just like, there's no way I can pull this off because I never put together a cake like that. That like that and it was that broken and then fixed it in 20 minutes. I had never done that, but now I can say I have. I
Elizabeth: You created a new challenge for yourself, a challenge within the challenge.
Adesuwa: I did. Now my new thing since being back home and baking is like, okay, I have to frost faster. So now I time myself to see how fast I can frost cake. So I'm like, I gotta get my frost time down. when I get to like eight minutes would be great. If I could frost a cake in eight minutes, that'd be like ideal. I'm about at 15, but I'm working on it.
Elizabeth: That's impressive. Wow. That's real professionalism. I'm glad that you feel glad that you feel like the editing was fair because I think that could be nerve wracking for anyone who gets involved in any sort of reality show is you're turning your, not your life, but your portrayal over to, the producers and some people, I think, in some shows I've read feel like, oh, Icame out looking more like a villain or something.
This is other types of shows, maybe not baking shows as much, but I'm, I'm glad that you feel at least what you've seen so far, that it seems like it's a fair portrayal for you and, and probably your competitors as well.
Adesuwa: I think we all look good. I think it's been very, very fair thus far. I don't foresee it changing. I put a lot of good energy out there during my time on the show. So I hope that I get good energy back on the show.
Elizabeth: Is there any sort of rehearsal that, I mean, it seems like you guys know where to stand at the beginning like you all look very good up there when John is talking to you and everything. It's not chaotic really, I guess, until you're going to run.
Adesuwa: No, there's no rehearsal. They just show us a map. Well, not even a map. They just line us up and say, okay, this is where, like, literally right before walking. here's the floor plan of like where you're going to stand. You're sitting, you're sitting, you're standing, you're whatever. All right, go. And then we just walk out there and that's it. There's no rehearsal.
Elizabeth: Did you just get yourself in a certain frame of mind? Do you like do a little mantra or meditation or something before taping to say like, I don't know, I can do this, I'm a creative person or whatever? Because like you mentioned, it's a very different experience than your day to day life, even though it's still baking, the timeframe is different.
The attention is different. The talking is different. The community around you is different. How did you adjust to that?
Adesuwa: Yeah. I think for me honestly, I just prayed every day. I woke up in the morning and I had a YouTube subscription, and I would listen to a sermon from someone that I liked that was, I felt inspirational. And then I would kind of, sit there for a little bit and I'd put my headphones on because I needed to like drown out the noise with everybody was excited or had their theories of what was about to go down and naturally like you listen to what they say.
And so you start preparing for that and then you get in there and it's not bad at all. so you kind of start planning. okay, this first challenge is going to be, um, you know, I don't know, underwater, water basket weaving. Okay, great. So you're like, okay, well, how would I weave a basket?
So you're sitting there subconsciously like planning on like, how am I going to make a basket out of cake and then you get in there and you're like, okay, you're making tiramisu. And then you're just completely thrown off. So my strategy was like, okay, let me just stay in my own lane and keep myself calm.
And then I was just always very nervous because this is the first time that we're all seeing each other's bakes. We had never seen each other's bakes. Like you go in there, you bake your stuff, you put your stuff up. They take a picture and you leave. so you don't see what anybody else is doing.
So in the back, everybody's describing what they've done. you're like, okay, great. Wow. You hand painted this tarot card and you did all this crazy stuff. And what did you do? And you made a dragon that was blowing smoke and they're selling it to you.
Like they did something. So this is the very first time that you're like, [00:29:00] okay, now I see what you did. Now I understand, but I think you start listening to that and then you naturally are like, okay, well, I have to go harder because they went crazy and then nobody ever says that they didn't do great on something everybody's always gonna pretend like what they made was like the best God's greatest creation.
Exactly. This is the best thing in the world. so I just really, for me, I was like, okay, I'm gonna get really quiet and I don't want to talk about it. And I just want to sit in my own little space and have my headphones on and listen to music or whatever it was and just try to like center myself and then try to get my emotions and my nerves in check and just know that, okay
what's for me is what's for me and I'm here for a reason and I'm here to do something and I'm gonna get out there and just do my best and that's honestly what I did and it really didn't matter what anyone else did because whatever's for me is for me, I guess at the end of the day, if it's meant for me to be the ultimate winner, great, if it's meant for me to go home first, great, whatever my role is, is what I'm going to do here.
Elizabeth: It sounds a little bit like, athletes, you see swimmers at the Olympics or something, and they've got their headphones on and it's like, you just got to stay in your zone, right? Because you can't be distracted by everybody else's literal and figurative noise. But also what you were saying is about people trying to imagine what's it going to be, what's this next thing?
I think as humans, we all want to try to feel like we're in control. And if we can try to, Oh, it's going to be a pie with the this and the that or whatever. And then we can, impose our will on that. And then we've got control of the situation. But in fact, we have no idea what this day is going to bring or what in this case that bake is going to bring.
And so then we've just thrown everything off because then we have to do a complete right turn to what the reality is. So it's a much wiser approach to just kind of be present and just stay like you were with your headphones on. Be where you are and take what comes.
Adesuwa: Yep. I think it was like right after tiramisu, Because once they told us it was tiramisu, we're all like, okay, cool, we're making regular coffee chocolate tiramisu.
so my head, I was like, I'm going to make a hazelnut tiramisu. So I was looking around like, okay, I'm going to get hazelnuts. So my head, I had already decided what I was going to do. And then they were like, now come up here and grab a card so you can determine what flavor you're going to make.
But you just put like, I don't even know, about three minutes of thought and made a definitive decision on what I'm about to do. So I've already figured out how I'm going to play this game, like I already made my decision. I'm doing hails on that. I'm going to toast them. I'm going to make this crumble.
I'm going to do all this stuff to the chair. And then they're like, come pull the card. And I grabbed limoncello and I'm like, great. Now with limoncello and hazelnuts, last time I checked, don't go together at all.
Elizabeth: Not gonna be a great mix. Yeah.
Adesuwa: I don't think
So it was hard. it was challenging, but I think that's what I enjoyed.
I enjoyed the twists the most, like I enjoyed the the creativity of the twists the most. I think that time is hard when you're dealing with something that you haven't dealt with before, like new ingredients or putting new flavor combinations together that maybe you haven't, like, I had never had limoncello and raspberry.
I mean, I knew it would work, right? Because lemons and raspberry go well together, but I had never made that together. So for me, I needed to like taste and taste and taste and taste and fix and fix and fix. And you don't always have the time to do that. So I feel like I would lose time trying to make sure it came together.
And then also too, they were sneaky. Like you'd be waiting for a twist. So like my German chocolate cake, I was nervous picking it because I was like, well, I'm going to pick this German chocolate cake and then they're going to be like, add, I don't know, ground beef to it or something crazy. And then My whole plan is messed up so as it went along you're like, okay Let me get as generic as possible. Let me not get too like focused on a flavor because you wanted to have a way out.
Elizabeth: A little out. Be a little nimble somewhere because something's coming.
Adesuwa: Right. So then I had like, I'm going to do chocolate cake, probably German chocolate. because by the time that I get them baking my cake and my cakes up you're calculating now, like I'll be at about an hour and 10 minutes and I'll be just, you know, at the stage.
And then that's when they're going to throw this challenge out at me and they're gonna figure it out. And then they told us cookies and I was like, not mentally prepared for cookies because I had already decided in my head that it was going to be a add this ingredient to your bake, not bake another item. So it throws you. They're sneaky over there.
Elizabeth: But again, I guess that's another little metaphor for life, right? You don't know what's coming. Be creative.
Adesuwa: You don't. Take a deep breath and keep going.
Elizabeth: So most of us, well, we'll never be on a show like that, but also we'll never be as accomplished a baker as you are. Do you have any tips or what do you think it takes to be a good baker?
Adesuwa: I think,
Elizabeth: What can we learn from you?
Adesuwa: I think pastry is a science. And I think that you have to Be scientific [00:34:00] about it and measure your ingredients correctly and triple check your list and just be specific. I know I keep talking about time, but give yourself time to bake and realize, okay, this is going to take a while.
And that, that little three ounce, three grams missing here and five grams over here it's gonna matter eventually. so I would just be very specific. my sister can't, my sister, I love my sister to death. but, she can't bake.
She's not a baker. I think it's a lack of attention to detail. I think if you can't bake, it's because you're not paying attention to the instructions probably, but it's challenging.
Elizabeth: Some people love to cook, because they can just throw in a little more of this, a little more of that, but baking, you actually have to follow the...
Adesuwa: I think I enjoyed cooking more. I never thought honestly that I would ever have a pastry was never what I was ever going to do. I was always going to be a cuisine chef. If you'd asked any of my chefs, they told me a while ago, you're going to be a pastry chef.
And I said, no, I'm not. And they were like, yes, you are. you like money and you're specific. you like budgeting and all that kind of stuff. Cause pastries will used to be affordable to do now. Commodity products are the most expensive things on the market, honestly, but, they're like, no, no, you're gonna be, a pastry chef.
And I was like, no, there's no way I'm going to be focusing on just cuisine. And so I do find it freeing, like once you get the base down, then how versatile you can make things as you go that's always been really fun to try to figure out, okay, where can I push a flavor? How hard can I push it before I break it?
So that's fun.
Elizabeth: I've never heard that phrase. I love it. How hard you can push a flavor until you break it.
Adesuwa: Then you're messed. Then you're on Halloween Baking Championship, episode 2.
Elizabeth: You can push a lot of things on that show,
Adesuwa: Mhm.
Elizabeth: Well, I can't wait to keep watching and to see what happens with you and your friends. I won't call them competitors anymore. I love that you're all still friends.
Adesuwa: We are friends.
Elizabeth: Thank you for this behind the scenes look. It's been so fascinating and, it's been really fun to get to know you.
And sometime if I'm in San Antonio, I'll come to your shop and get to see what flavors you're pushing
Adesuwa: Yes, please. Yes, please. as we push them until they almost break flavor first and then figure out how to make it look pretty. But no, thank you. I had so much fun here hanging out with you. And thank you for spending some time with me.
It was so fun to talk with Adesuwa about her experiences on the Halloween Baking Championship. I do want to mention that a PR person was sitting in on the interview on behalf of the Food Network Because I wasn't allowed to ask certain questions, and if I did, I had to cut them out.
So, if you're wondering why I didn't ask certain things, that's the reason. But I still felt like I was able to get a good sense from Adesuwa about what it was like to be on the show. Here are some of my takeaways from our conversation.
1. Childhood dreams can come true. There's no one recipe to making them happen, but hard work, perseverance, and a good attitude are always good ingredients.
2. Perfectionism can get us in trouble, even if we don't have a literal clock ticking down the seconds until our bake needs to get presented to the judges. Do the best you can, appreciate what you've done, and move on.
3. Even when things are falling apart... Literally like a cake, or figuratively, you can pause, be in the moment, and embrace the experience, and not take it for granted.
4. When you accomplish something for the first time, applaud yourself. Not many people can fix, frost, and decorate a cake in 20 minutes. If you did that amazing thing, think of what else you can do.
5. Trying to control the future is fruitless. Stay focused on what you know and what you can control and don't get distracted by other people.
6. You don't know what's coming next. Be creative. Take a deep breath and keep going.
Big thanks to Adesua Elaiho for taking the time to talk with me. if you want to watch her and her friends, the Halloween Baking Championship is streaming now on the Food Network through the end of October.
For more information about Adesua and her pastry shop in San Antonio, go to the show notes for this episode. If you like listening to interviews with women who have made careers out of baking, you might want to listen to episode 40 with Nancy Mueller, who created a multimillion-dollar business empire as the queen of quiche.
And episode 18, when Rebecca Firth talked about writing cookbooks and her popular baking blog, Displaced Housewife. You can find all of our past episodes and links to our social media accounts on our website, whatitsliketo.net. If you haven't yet subscribed to this podcast, please do, and please tell a few friends about it too.
I'm Elizabeth Pearson Garr. Thanks for being curious about what it's like.