Next Level Baker premiere recap: Holiday chocolate challenge sparks drama across all three kitchens

Next Level Baker is a three-week holiday spinoff of Next Level Chef, featuring 12 bakers, which premiered on Thursday, December 4, 2025, on Fox and Fox One, with episodes available to stream the next day on Hulu.

Mentor and judge Gordon Ramsay returns, along with Carla Hall and Candace Nelson, who guide contestants through festive challenges in a kitchen divided into three tiers: top, middle and the basement.

Twelve bakers are divided into three groups: home bakers, professional bakers and social media bakers who entered the three-tier kitchen to compete for the $25,000, a Hexclad prize package and the Next Level Baker title.

The first episode, “Baking Spirits Bright,” saw the bakers challenged to create nostalgic chocolate treats and then craft boozy holiday party cakes using alcohol, with three bakers from each group, along with an additional baker being eliminated.

Each group had to choose a box to determine which kitchen they would bake in, and then the kitchen was assigned based on the results. 

Here's what happened on the premiere of the holiday-themed spinoff Next Level Baker 

The bakers from three different teams arrived: home, professional and social media, who were assigned three different kitchen levels: top level, middle level or the basement.

To determine the level of the kitchen on which they had to bake, each group chose an unwrapped box from the three options. Kitchen assignments in this round were:

• Top Level: Social Media Bakers (Candace)

• Middle Level: Professional Bakers (Carla)

• Basement Level: Home Bakers (Gordon)

The bakers had 60 minutes to make a chocolate-based holiday dish that represented a family tradition. They had 30 seconds to choose their ingredients. 

The platform of ingredients started at the top and moved downward, leaving the basement with scraps, with only chocolate syrup as the source of chocolate.

While the Social Media Bakers had premium ingredients and equipment, the Home Bakers had to get creative with what little they had.

A surprise guest came when Santa Claus entered the platform, giving each baker a stocking containing an extra ingredient they were required to use.

Tastings and results

One baker from each category was eliminated at the end of the first round, who are: 

• Home Bakers: Michael Mararian

• Social Media Bakers: Justin Ellen

• Professional Bakers: Winston Murdock

For the second challenge, the remaining bakers had 75 minutes to create a dessert using alcohol. 

The kitchen assignments based on the results of the first challenge were:

• Top Level: Chad from the Professional Bakers, Stephanie from the Home Bakers and Zoha from the Social Media Bakers.

• Middle Level: Nikki from the Social Media Bakers, Deirdra from the Home Bakers and Chloe from the Social Media Bakers.

• Basement Level: Aubrey from the Professional Bakers, Jeff from the Home Bakers and Maricsa from the Professional Bakers.

After the tastings were done, Maricsa, Chad and Nikki were at the bottom with Maricsa Trejo getting eliminated from Next Level Bakers. At the same time, Chad and Nikki entered the basement kitchen to bake next week.

Here are the results after the first episode ended:

Professional Bakers

• Still Competing: Chad Visger, Aubrey Smith Shaffner

• Eliminated: Winston Murdock, Maricsa Trejo

Social Media Bakers

• Still Competing: Nikita “Nikki” Jackson, Chloe Sexton, Zoha Malik

• Eliminated: Justin Ellen

Home Bakers

• Still Competing: Stefanie Embree, Deirdra Lambright, Jeff Chudakoff

• Eliminated: Michael Mararian

Next Level Chef streams on Thursday nights at 9:00 p.m. ET/PT on FOX, and is available the next day on Hulu.

Stay tuned for more updates.