Banh & Butter owner competes in Food Network finale

Thoa Nguyen struggles with the feeling that she disappointed her family “by leaving the family business that was built for me,” she said Monday on the final episode of “Holiday Baking Championship,” a competition show that has been airing on the Food Network.

But after making it into the final four — and garnering praise from celebrity chef judges Carla Hall, Duff Goldman and Nancy Fuller — the owner of Aurora’s Banh & Butter Bakery Cafe is starting to feel like the risk she took to open her own business is paying off.

Nguyen didn’t take the crown, but she put up a good fight, racking up small wins along the way.

“I never really got to show my family that this was all for a good reason before, but this makes it all worth it,” Nguyen said. “If I didn’t branch out, I would never have had the confidence to be on a show like this. Winning it would have just been a cherry on top.”

Nguyen’s parents owned New Saigon Vietnamese restaurant for 30 years. But before selling it in 2017, they added a bakery, New Saigon Bakery, for their classically French-trained pastry chef daughter to take over. But Nguyen decided to break off on her own and opened Banh & Butter at 9935 E. Colfax Ave. in Aurora last year, making a name for herself with her Asian-French fusion treats, like ube crepe cakes.

And last spring, she was cast to compete among 11 other bakers from around the country on season 10 of Food Network’s “Holiday Baking Championship,” a Christmas-themed competition hosted by former Bachelor and NFL quarterback Jesse Palmer.

Nguyen appeared in eight episodes with at least two baking challenges per show, showcasing her skills with treats like a Thai tea opera cake and a cinnamon puff pastry Christmas tree with a crème anglaise twist, which beat out the other bakers in episode seven.

“I was on the bottom in the first episode, and it left this lasting impression that I was an underdog,” Nguyen said. “So I spent the rest of the time trying to prove to other people my level of skill sets and also trying to prove that to myself.”

She nearly received the $25,000 award and feature in the Food Network magazine after winning the first round in the finale episode with her peppermint bark macaron wreath, a tribute to her older sister Thu, who loves peppermint bark. For the final challenge, she got the advantage of choosing her holiday party theme first for an intricate three-tiered cake with a train running around it.

Nguyen baked a penguin holiday party-themed spiced cake with a salted caramel apple filling. She loves to paint, so she used a paint palette to create the Rocky Mountains with frosting on the top tier, added snow-dusted trees on the second and created a waterfall, where fondant penguins looked like they were cliff diving, on the third.

The celebrity judges wished they had more caramel and apple in the filling, but praised Nguyen for her meticulous details and artistic skills. She ended up losing to a fellow baker from New Braunfels, Texas, who baked a teddy bear-themed cake.

“It was me on a cake and really showcased my love for Colorado, different techniques and artistic abilities, which was the whole point of doing this,” Nguyen said.

“I had major high hopes, and not going to lie, I felt like I was going to win it, especially after the first challenge,” Nguyen said. “I was very disappointed when I didn’t.”

Although she didn’t win the crown, she learned a lot about herself as a baker in the process, like not taking criticism so personally, and she might be more competitive than she realizes.