Saturday Night Live veteran Cheri Oteri stepped outside of her comfort zone — and into the kitchen — on Roku’s Great American Baking Show: Celebrity Holiday.
“[The most chaotic parts were] more in our stations because everybody was in their [own] station,” Oteri, 63, exclusively told Us Weekly on Tuesday, December, of being in the famed tent. “And the first day, our first competition, you’re making three different things.”
Oteri faced off against Baron Davis, Oliver Hudson and Janelle James on the latest episode of Great American Baking Show, currently streaming on Hulu. Per tradition, each celebrity contestant is asked to make three different baked treats before one competitor is crowned the victor.
As Oteri pointed out, the signature round was especially difficult because of the three-part task.
“Most of the time we were doing, I would say, it’s not just one thing, except for those round things that [were in our technical challenge] but they were pistachio and we did them as rings into a Christmas tree,” Oteri said. “Those really got me because she said [Prue Leith, the judge] wouldn’t give us a time for how long to cook them. She just said ‘till golden brown.’”
Oteri finished second-to-last in the technical after judges Leith, 85, and Paul Hollywood struggled to cut into the cookie layers.
“I made mine not well, but you have to cook all your circles separately and they all have to be a certain length and measured,” she recalled. “I sat there outside of my oven and just stared into it, waiting for them to be golden brown. What you don’t realize when you’re cooking with pistachio flour that’s already dark, [making something] golden brown with a darker flour is going to be overcooked.”
Despite her technical mishaps, Oteri gave her all in the Baking Show tent.
Cheri Oteri. Courtesy of Roku
“It truly was a challenge for me because, [on] my first day, I thought I [was] in over my head,” Oteri told Us. “I really got nervous. I just didn’t want to, like, embarrass myself. … It’s not that I’m competitive, I’m just hard on myself, [and] it’s hard for me to have fun when I’m almost taking it too seriously.”
As the comedian focused on the task at hand, she gained a new appreciation for baking overall.
“I was really surprised how difficult it was,” she stated. “I never used an electric measuring [tools[ to weigh things, [where] you have to subtract the bowl that the ingredient is in right, and that right there is math. … I was like, ‘Oh, I didn’t know this [and] there was going to be math involved.’ There’s a lot of math involved measuring things, and even with a ruler to make the different circles that you needed to make to build a tree from big down to small. There was a lot to it.”
The Great British Bake Off has crowned many winners since its debut on BBC Two in 2010, and the show has managed to entice viewers worldwide thanks to its popularity on Netflix. Fans instantly fell in love with the endearing contestants, accomplished judges — including Mary Berry and Paul Hollywood (and later Prue Leith) — […]
Conquering the difficulties of the festive recipes also allowed Oteri to forge friendships with competitors Davis, 46, Hudson, 49, and James, 46.
“They were awesome, and we laughed and we did bond,” Oteri said of their downtime between rounds of the competition. “We went back to our hotel at night, and we all came out [and] sat around and it was fun.”
Great American Baking Show: Celebrity Holiday is currently streaming on Roku.
