Long Island baker wins Food Network's 'Halloween Cookie Challenge'
Emily Solomos of Mount Sinai competes on Food Network’s “Halloween Cookie Challenge.” Credit: Food Network / Betty Weiner
Mount Sinai's Emily Solomos took the $10,000 top prize on the episode of Food Network's "Halloween Cookie Challenge" that aired Monday.
After competing in December on Food Network's "Christmas Cookie Challenge," the 25-year-old behind Em's Custom Cookies was pitted against fellow bakers and pastry chefs Janae Barcus of Georgia, Cheryl Henderson of Ohio and Allan Hursig of Texas. Each was tasked with, first, giving classic Halloween designs a makeover, and then creating a 3D cookie graveyard of creepy characters, using such "bloody" ingredients as Amarena cherries, pomegranate seeds and blood oranges.
Solomos wowed the judges with her first-round rainbow-sherbet cookie and her second-round cookie made of cookie butter — a food paste of cookie crumbs, flour, sugar and a fat such as condensed milk or butter — with cream cheese icing, and an orange-spice cookie with blood-orange icing.
The Mount Sinai High School and Iona College alumna also had an update on the kitchen situation she discussed on the episode, about monopolizing her parents' kitchen with her nights-and-weekends business. Happily, she told Newsday on Monday, "I just signed a lease for an apartment yesterday!"
