Charles Zimmerman: Where Are They Now?

Spoiler note: this post confirms that Charles Zimmerman won his season of the Holiday Baking Championship.

Charles Zimmerman is the most recent champion of Food Network's Holiday Baking Championship, and because his win is so fresh, a "where are they now" on him is really a "where is he right now." He won season 12, which ran from November 3 to December 22, 2025, and the finale aired only weeks before this was written. Here is what is verified and where the record still goes quiet.

The win

Zimmerman took the season 12 title on the December 22, 2025 finale, which multiple outlets including Just Jared and Primetimer covered the night it aired. He won the $25,000 grand prize, the Food Network Magazine feature, and the title of Holiday Baking Champion. His final showpiece was a "Santa vs. Scrooge" cake, described in that coverage as a tall, tiered piece that split soft, cheerful Santa layers against grouchy, spiced Scrooge ones. It was a concept bake, the kind that lives or dies on execution, and it carried him to the win.

The baker behind the win

Zimmerman came into the tent as a serious professional, not a hobbyist. Coverage of the finale identified him as an executive pastry chef at Farmington Country Club in Charlottesville, Virginia, with training in some of the most demanding kitchens in the country, including Per Se in New York and The French Laundry in California. That is a Thomas Keller lineage, and it explains the technical polish that a finale showpiece like his demands.

Where things stand now

Here the honest answer is that the trail is only days old. As of the finale in late December 2025, Zimmerman was an executive pastry chef at Farmington Country Club, and the win is too recent for any meaningful post-show chapter to have formed yet. There is no verified cookbook, restaurant launch, or follow-up television booking to report, and claiming one would be invention. What can be said with confidence is the win, the prize, the winning cake, and the day job he held when he took the title. Anything beyond that is still ahead of him.

For context on the champions who came before him, our guide to every Holiday Baking Championship winner traces the full line, and Ashley Landerman, the season 10 winner, shows what a longer post-win arc can look like.

The takeaway for fans

Zimmerman's story is a snapshot of the moment right after a win, before the world decides what to make of it. What his season proves is that a concept cake with a clean split like Santa and Scrooge is as much about structure as flavor, and reliable cake pans in the right sizes are where a tiered build like that starts. To follow the show that crowned him, the Holiday Baking Championship hub keeps every season in one place.