Michelle Antonishek: Where Are They Now?

Spoiler note: this post confirms that Michelle Antonishek won season two of Halloween Baking Championship.

Michelle Antonishek won the second season of the Halloween Baking Championship in October 2016, a pastry chef from the small town of Cotulla, Texas who beat the field across the five-episode season. Of all the show's champions, her story since is probably the most consistent: she went back to the job she loved and simply kept doing it, extremely well.

The Ginger Dead House

Antonishek clinched the title in a finale fittingly named "Ginger Dead House," where she dazzled the judges with a horror-movie take on the gingerbread house: edible ghosts, faux flames, and what appeared to be a splatter of fake blood. It was the show's aesthetic in a single bake, technically sound pastry committed completely to the Halloween bit, and it remains one of the more memorable finale showpieces of the early seasons.

Back to the ranch

Where most reality champions use the exposure to launch something new, Antonishek returned to a post she had already held for years: executive pastry chef and lodge manager at Los Cuernos Ranch in South Texas, a role she has kept since 2013. A decade-plus in one kitchen is its own kind of statement in an industry built on churn, and it means her Food Network title is a credential attached to a working chef rather than a stepping stone away from the stove.

A new name

One life update worth knowing if you go looking for her: she married in 2021 and now goes by Michelle Kortis, so her post-show trail appears under both names.

The honest picture

Beyond the ranch role and the name change, Antonishek keeps a low public profile. There is no cookbook, no follow-up television run, and no personal bakery brand that has been widely documented, and that appears to be by choice rather than circumstance. Season two aired before the show became the seven-episode institution it is now, and its champion settled into exactly the life she had before, plus a trophy.

That makes her a useful data point in the where-are-they-now genre: the win does not have to change everything. Some champions build empires; some go home to a ranch kitchen in South Texas and keep making excellent desserts for guests who may have no idea their pastry chef once out-baked a national field on television. For the champions who took other paths, the full list is in every Halloween Baking Championship winner.