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Caleb King of Treehouse Kitchen is on Halloween Baking Championship.
Fall City pastry chef Caleb King is a contestant on the current season of Foot Network’s Halloween Baking Championship.
The 12th season of the show premiered Sept. 14, and King is one of 10 contestants competing for $25,000 through a series of spooky baking challenges. Two weeks in, King is standing strong on the show. The next episode will air on Sept. 28.
King, who hails from central New York, is the pastry chef for Fall City’s Treehouse Kitchen, a sister business to Treehouse Point that opened Sept. 12. He has been with the team for a year and a half.
Before Treehouse Point, King worked for the Four Seasons. Before that, he attended Seattle Culinary Academy for pastry school, following a move to the west coast in 2012.
Years earlier, King’s love for baking took root with him concocting “recipes” as a kid.
“It was like baking powder, food coloring and flour,” he said, admitting that the creations were not very tasty.
King started making real cakes in high school, followed by a journey into wedding cakes. Growing up watching Ace of Cakes on Food Network, King’s dream was to have his own cake shop like Duff Goldman — the “coolest guy ever,” a young King thought.
So, when Food Network reached out to ask King if he wanted to be on Halloween Baking Championship, it was a no-brainer.
King said the contestants grew very close with each other, and he still talks to some of them weekly.
“There’s so much they don’t show [on TV] of the downtime, like joking with each other or talking with each other or lifting each other up,” he said. “And then you’re all staying in the hotel and you have dinner together, and it was such a great time.”
King said his biggest lesson from the show was to be confident in his ability. It’s a lesson he shared with a fellow contestant in a scene from the Sept. 21 episode.
“There’s a part where I say, ‘You’re here for a reason,’” he said. “I think just being able to believe in ourselves was probably the biggest takeaway.”
While this experience was a dream come true for King, the dream isn’t over yet.
“It definitely checked off the list,” he said, “but now the list grows.”
