{"id":35668,"date":"2025-01-09T17:58:23","date_gmt":"2025-01-09T22:58:23","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/?p=35668"},"modified":"2025-01-16T18:55:41","modified_gmt":"2025-01-16T23:55:41","slug":"holiday-baking-brings-new-accolade-to-auroras-levitt","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/holiday-baking-brings-new-accolade-to-auroras-levitt\/","title":{"rendered":"Holiday baking brings new accolade to Aurora\u2019s Levitt"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

The holiday season was extra sweet for Aurora resident Steve Levitt as the Great Canadian Baking Show alum took home the trophy in Food Network\u2019s Holiday Baking Championship.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Since the eleventh season of the popular show debuted on Food Network near the start of November, contestants from both the United States and Canada were put through their paces, with a series of festively-themed baking challenges. The final episode of the season was broadcast December 23, allowing Levitt\u2019s friends and family in on a secret he\u2019d been harbouring for months since filming stopped.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was tough keeping the secret,\u201d Levitt tells The Auroran with a laugh, adding that a scheduling shift which saw American audiences treated to the finale ahead of Canadian viewers made the secret-keeping a particularly difficult challenge. \u201cIf those nine months were tough to keep it quiet, that last week was excruciating!<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cPeople weren\u2019t pushing \u2013 they knew I wouldn\u2019t tell them anyway. The week that I almost went home when in the bottom two, I had a lot of notes from friends who were nervous. I had one friend (Vincent, the winner of Levitt\u2019s season of The Great Canadian Baking Show, in which Levitt placed in the top three) who said by Week Five, \u2018I guessed every week who is going to go home before the show aired.\u2019 I asked, \u201cHow could you?\u2019 because you never knew what was going to happen, and he said it was just by the strengths and weakness. I said, \u2018So, who is going to go home next week?\u2019 There was silence on the phone. I said, \u2018It\u2019s okay if you think it\u2019s me \u2013 there\u2019s nothing wrong with that.\u2019 He said, \u2018I really think it is going to be you,\u2019 so I said, \u2018Cool, let\u2019s see what happens!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Vincent was able to see just what happened when he came to Levitt\u2019s Aurora home for a finale viewing party.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI think he was shocked when I actually won and it was a great moment to have him there as well.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Prior to the finale, the only people outside of the production itself who knew the results were Levitt\u2019s wife and daughters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cLooking into my wife\u2019s eyes, trying to get the words out on Facetime, I remember breaking down. I was sitting in the dining area of the hotel and I could feel the words in my throat. To watch [the finale] again with my wife and children and friends and family \u2013 it was emotional, just crazy.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Having placed in the Top 3 in his season of The Great Canadian Baking Show, Levitt could be forgiven from coming into this new baking arena, one with a much broader international audience, with a fair share of confidence. But, up until the end, he says he had no idea he was on track to win it all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThere was no chance,\u201d he says, chuckling over how the finale was filmed. \u201cThe editing showed the troubles I was having with my buttercream, but it didn\u2019t show the mountain of problems I had baking. Everything that could have gone wrong went wrong and halfway through the bake I just realized there was no way I was going to win. Then, this wave of calm came over me, like, \u2018There\u2019s no pressure now, all you have to do is try and finish your bake. They can\u2019t send you home, so enjoy this, take it all in.\u2019<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI was having a ball taking it all in, looking at the other bakers and because of that I looked at my cake in a different way than it was. I left the kitchen seeing [the other contestants\u2019] flawless cakes and then I see my sort of joke of a cake in my head. When we left, I turned to the others and said, \u2018I don\u2019t know how this is possible, but I just finished fifth out of four people!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Judges, however, saw something much different. In fact, they saw that he\u2019d nailed the assignment.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou could have knocked me over with a feather. I knew they liked the flavours, but it was still not registering there was a chance I was going to win. It was only until I watched the show that I felt, okay, I deserved to win and then this outpouring of direct messages from people on social media, comments on posts I made \u2013 to say \u2018humbling\u2019 is scratching the surface. It was unbelievable \u2013 the nice things that people said about me, about my baking, about what I did, about how they were pulling for me, it was unbelievable and it is still happening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI always felt I could do something, no matter what I do. A lot of people go in saying, \u2018I don\u2019t know if I can do it.\u2019 My feeling is, \u2018I can\u2019 until I find out I can\u2019t, and then I started figuring why I couldn\u2019t and try to fix it. I went into this one with that same thought process \u2013 my goal was to make it to the second episode. I knew I was going to be in there against professionals and just wanted to see how I would fare.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHow long could I last? I didn\u2019t go in with any idea that I had a chance of winning at all and then when I met the other bakers and learned their pedigrees and saw what they do, it really became, \u2018Okay, every day that I make it in here, that\u2019s my goal, that\u2019s my bar,\u2019 but I made the second episode\u2026 I got great feedback and every day was a little bit more and more of, \u2018I do belong.\u2019 I never thought I was at that level but I was in there having a good time and it really just reinforced my feeling that I went in there with \u2013 just have a good time, just find the joy in this. I did that at the Canadian show and when I went here, it was the same thing.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asked whether he would consider trying out for another baking show given his recent success, he says, \u201cI would do this every day\u201d because he simply loves the process, but it\u2019s not something that\u2019s at the top of his agenda at the moment. That being said, however, if he was ever offered the chance to host a program like this, he\u2019d consider it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI still think I have the palate of a seven-year-old, so I am not sure I\u2019m the right person to be a judge,\u201d he says. \u201cDo I want to go on another competition and bake again? Never say never \u2013 not that I am looking at [Holiday Baking Championship host and fellow Canadian] Jesse Palmer\u2019s job, but if they ever had another TV show and they were looking for a host who knows a little bit about baking and cooking who likes to smile a lot, I\u2019m your guy for that! I wouldn\u2019t even hesitate \u2013 I would say yes to that in a heartbeat!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By Brock Weir<\/strong><\/p>\n\r\n\"Facebook\"<\/a>\"twitter\"<\/a>\"mail\"<\/a>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The holiday season was extra sweet for Aurora resident Steve Levitt as the Great Canadian Baking Show alum took home the trophy in Food Network\u2019s Holiday Baking Championship. Since the eleventh season of the popular show debuted on Food Network near the start of November, contestants from both the United States and Canada were put […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[27,4,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-35668","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-arts-and-culture","category-general_news","category-news"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p3D2k4-9hi","publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-05-09 19:35:02","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35668","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=35668"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35668\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":35669,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/35668\/revisions\/35669"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=35668"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=35668"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newspapers-online.com\/auroran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=35668"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}