Holiday Baking Championship Season 10: Recap, Bakes and Winner

Spoiler note: this recap names the Season 10 winner and covers how the season played out.

Season 10 is one of the best-documented seasons in the franchise's run, thanks to local Texas press coverage of its winner that went well beyond the usual finale write-up. Ashley Landerman's win over a five-person finalist field, larger than most seasons of this show, made local headlines in New Braunfels and gave this recap unusually solid sourcing to work from. The full season by season record lives on our Holiday Baking Championship show hub.

Season 10 at a glance

The finalists

Ashley Landerman, a pastry chef from New Braunfels, Texas, won the season with a train cake as her final showstopper bake. The runners-up, all listed as co-finalists, were Kevin Conniff, Justine Rota, Sharrod Mangum, and Thoa Nguyen, a wider finalist field than the show typically features.

How a Holiday Baking Championship episode works

The franchise's standard two-round format anchored this season too: a preheat challenge opens each episode and tests a narrower skill, and a bigger, holiday-themed main heat closes it out and decides who is eliminated. Bakers work against the clock in a shared studio kitchen, and the judges taste and critique every dish before sending someone home, the same structure that had been in place for nine prior seasons by this point.

Notable moments of Season 10

Ashley Landerman's win is one of the most thoroughly documented in the franchise. Local Texas outlets covered her victory in detail at the time, confirming both her train cake final bake and her background as a working pastry chef. She has since become co-owner of 2tarts Bakery in New Braunfels, another entry on the growing list of Holiday Baking Championship winners who turned the title into an actual storefront rather than just a trophy.

The four-person runner-up field is also unusual for this show. Most seasons name two co-finalists behind the winner; this season's coverage names four, suggesting either a larger final round that year or simply more thorough contemporaneous reporting than some other seasons received.

What was at stake

The show's cash prize, reported at $50,000 in earlier seasons, remained the tangible reward behind Ashley Landerman's win, on top of the title itself. That kind of prize is often the difference between a hobby and a storefront for working pastry professionals, which is exactly what it became when Landerman went on to co-own 2tarts Bakery, a pattern this recap series has now traced across several different seasons and winners of this franchise.

The unusually large four-person runner-up field this season also stands out against most other years, where the show's press coverage typically names only two co-finalists behind the winner, a difference likely tied to how thoroughly local Texas media covered Landerman's story compared to most other seasons.

Where to watch and what to read next

Season 10 is generally available to stream on Discovery+ and Max, alongside periodic reruns on Food Network's own broadcast schedule. The complete champion list across all twelve seasons is in our Holiday Baking Championship winners roundup, which also covers the current host and judging lineup in full. Season 9 came before this one, and Season 11 crowned the franchise's first winner from outside the United States.

Duff Goldman's judging career across this franchise is covered in our Duff Goldman profile. If Ashley's train cake has you thinking bigger for your next bake, a set of specialty cake pans is the easiest way to attempt a shaped showstopper without freehand carving.