When Is Holiday Baking Championship 2026 On? Season 13 Airs Mondays On Food Network, With Molly Yeh Joining The Judges And No Nancy Fuller
Holiday Baking Championship is back for 2026. Season 13 premiered on Food Network on Monday, November 2, at 8 p.m. ET/PT (7 p.m. Central), with new episodes on Monday nights. Jesse Palmer hosts twelve bakers in “Santa’s Village,” Food Network’s North Pole setting for the season, and the champion wins $25,000.
The biggest change is at the judges’ table. Molly Yeh joins Duff Goldman and Kardea Brown, and Nancy Fuller is not on the panel this year.
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When is Holiday Baking Championship on?
New episodes air Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on Food Network. These are the dates Food Network’s schedule lists so far:
| Episode | Title | Airs |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Welcome to Santa’s Village | Monday, November 2 |
| 2 | The Time of Your Life | Monday, November 9 |
| 3 | Snow Business | Monday, November 16 |
| 4 | Chocolate for the Win | Monday, November 23 |
Missed the premiere? Food Network airs it again on Monday, November 9, at 6 p.m. ET, two hours before episode two. The schedule also holds the 8 p.m. slot for Holiday Baking Championship on Monday, November 30, though that episode doesn’t have a title yet. Food Network hasn’t announced how many episodes the season runs or when the finale airs.
Episode four lands on Thanksgiving week, on a busy night for baking TV. Our holiday baking show calendar has what else is on.
Where to watch and stream
Holiday Baking Championship airs on Food Network. Food Network hasn’t said where Season 13 will stream.
Who are the judges? Molly Yeh joins, Nancy Fuller is out
Food Network names Duff Goldman, Kardea Brown and Molly Yeh as this season’s judges, with Jesse Palmer returning as host. Last season, Food Network’s own description of the show listed Goldman, Fuller and Brown.
Food Network hasn’t said why Fuller isn’t back, Parade reported on October 12. Parade also found longtime viewers in the r/FoodNetwork forum on Reddit sad to see her go, and some doubtful about the switch. Parade points out that Yeh, host of Girl Meets Farm, is a cookbook author whose latest book is all desserts, and that she co-owns a bakery and cafe in Minnesota.
How Season 13 works: teams first, then every baker alone
The season opens with the twelve bakers split into two teams, the Elf Squad and the Reindeer Crew. Food Network’s episode guide says the teams dissolve after episode two, and from then on it’s every baker for themselves. Each member of the team that wins episode two earns 30 minutes to use later in the season.
Teams aren’t new to the show. Last season Food Network split the bakers into Naughty and Nice, billing it then as a first.
Each week’s winner takes a $1,000 Ghirardelli prize package. The last baker standing earns the title of Holiday Baking Champion and $25,000.
What the bakers are making
Food Network has posted the challenges for the first four episodes:
- Episode 1: an “employee profile” dessert showing what each baker loves about the holidays, then stained-glass cakes for Santa’s office.
- Episode 2: peppermint desserts, then red velvet desserts.
- Episode 3: snow globe trifles topped with a scene from a holiday memory.
- Episode 4: holiday desserts built on chocolate chip cookies, using Ghirardelli chips.
If peppermint week sends you to the kitchen, our Peppermint Drizzle Cookies are a peppermint shortbread finished with melted Andes mints. For red velvet, our Copycat Crumbl Red Velvet Chocolate Chip Cookies are a cocoa red velvet dough studded with white chocolate chips, our take on Crumbl’s. And ahead of episode four, our chocolate chip cookies use brown and white sugar with semisweet and milk chocolate chips. All three are our recipes, not the show’s.
Meet the 12 bakers
Food Network introduced the Season 13 bakers by trade and hometown:
- Andy de la Cruz, pastry chef, West Covina, California
- Audri Fleming, home bakery owner, Dallas, Texas
- Christina Schumacher, pastry sous chef, Shelton, Connecticut
- Curtis Lamar Scott, executive pastry chef, Atlanta, Georgia
- Dyana O’Brien, home bakery owner, Sacramento, California
- Fin Belson, pastry cook from Newton, Massachusetts, based in New York City
- Hailey Lemberger, pastry cook, Washington, D.C.
- Isabell Manibusan, pastry chef consultant, Los Angeles, California
- Jean Andrew, home bakery owner, Logan, Utah
- Jeremy “JerBear” Intille, executive pastry chef, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
- Jessie Lopez, pastry chef instructor, Houston, Texas
- Montanna Brumfield, private event pastry chef, Palm Coast, Florida
For Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking, the Pillsbury Bake-Off special and the rest of the season’s premieres, see every holiday baking show on TV this year.
Featured image: Rawpixel.com / Shutterstock.