Courtesy of Tarek Al Husseini

Tarek Al Husseini ’28 is the youngest of twelve competitors on Season 12 of the Food Network’s “Holiday Baking Championship,” which premiered on Monday night.

The show, which splits bakers into “Naughty” and “Nice” teams, has a prize of $25,000. Al Husseini, a sophomore, applied to the Holiday Baking Championship over the winter break of his first year and is the show’s only non-professional baker.

“I know how to play the game,” Al Husseini said.

Filming took place in Los Angeles over the summer. The head baker for Yale Pop-Up, a cooking club on campus, Al Husseini previously appeared at age 13 on Season 7 of the Food Network’s “Kids Baking Championship,” where he was the runner-up.

“Holiday Baking Championship” consists of eight weekly Monday night episodes at 8 p.m., with one person ultimately crowned Holiday Baking Champion.

Al Husseini had wanted to do another baking show after the Kids Baking Championship. While he did not compete on any baking shows in high school, he consistently baked, selling multiple cakes a week in the lead-up to college.

Al Husseini was prompted to apply to another baking competition show because one of the producers that observed him on the Kids Baking Championship reached out to him personally. “I remember one of them asked me, ‘How old are you?’” Al Husseini recalled. “And when I said 18, he said, ‘Have you ever considered applying for the adults show?’”

To prepare, Al Husseini memorized many of his base recipes and important ratios, which he could then modify during the competition. He also did many practice bakes every day in the week leading up to the competition.

Al Husseini said he initially felt that the older bakers questioned his capabilities. But, he added, “at the end of the day, I can’t blame them for that, because I would also be skeptical of a 19-year-old who isn’t professionally trained either.” Al Husseini ultimately grew very close with the other bakers, noting that they have a very active group chat to this day.

At Yale, Al Husseini is majoring in Economics and Global Affairs. He spends time outside of the classroom as the head baker for Pop-Up, a biweekly fine-dining experience.

Anika Shethia ’27 works with Al Husseini on the Pop-Up baking team. She remembered interviewing him for the club during his freshman year at Yale.

“He was super committed. He’d already done the Kids Baking Championship,
so we were like, ‘Oh, he’s definitely very skilled.’ We ended up taking him on the baking team, and he turned out to be more skilled than I even thought,” Shethia said.

Pop-Up models its audition process on “Chopped,” another well-known cooking contest shown on the Food Network. Shethia added that the group created the role of head baker for Al Husseini specifically.

Roxy Jones ’29, a new member of the baking team, said that beyond being an amazing baker, Al Husseini is “an even more amazing mentor and friend.” Al Husseini has taught Jones how to take basic ideas and turn them into something that will appear on the next Pop-Up menu.

“He’s just so original,” Jones said. “He doesn’t have that Gordon Ramsey ego,” Jones added.

Shethia furthered that Al Husseini is a leader who takes action, advocating for more Pop-Up funds to be dedicated to the baking team.

Al Husseini said he has enjoyed the opportunity to be innovative thanks to Pop-Up’s creative freedom. 

“I remember at one of the openings, someone came up to me and was like, ‘I’ve been to a lot of Michelin-starred restaurants, I’ve had a lot of Michelin-starred restaurant deserts, but this one is much better than a lot of the ones I’ve had,’” he said.

Looking forward, Al Husseini said he hopes to combine his passion for baking with his other interests. 

“Baking is not something I want to have as a career because in past experiences I’ve had selling stuff in high school, I got extremely burnt out, and I started kind of losing interest,” he said.

He pointed to the grueling hours and lack of job security as other downsides of being in the baking industry.

“I definitely want to do something that’s related to food in some capacity,” he said. “Anything from restaurant consulting or investment banking working with food companies, consumer retail, a jump into food entertainment or publishing a cook book.”

Al Husseini also emphasized the valuable professional connections he made with his competitors on “Holiday Baking Championship.”

“Every single one of them has offered, if I ever want to jump in the industry, I am welcome to text them and I could have a job in their kitchen,” he said.

The first episode of the series featured a challenge where Team Nice team made hot desserts and Team Naughty team made cold ones.