Washington cookie maker to compete for $10,000 on Food Network Christmas challenge
Baking cookies for Washington resident Gerryanne Bohn began as an experiment in her kitchen three years ago.
Now Bohn will be seen competing for $10,000 on national television for Food Network’s “Christmas Cookie Challenge” on Dec. 11. The show will air at 8 p.m. Eastern Time.
Bohn runs Driftless Cookies from her San Juan Island home where she bakes, decorates and packages sugar cookies for any holiday, season or special occasion, she told McClatchy News.
She said she’s completely self-taught.
“I learned everything off of like watching Instagram videos and that’s really what got me hooked,” she said. “It was so appealing and calming, and so I thought I’d give it a try.”
Bohn said she is a full-time special education teacher, and she runs her cookie business on the side.
Food Network reaches out for episode
Last December Bohn’s mother-in-law asked her if she’d ever be on a Food Network television show, and she said no.
“I am sort of a perfectionist, so thinking about being rushed and having a time limit really made me scared ... so I was like that’s not something I’d be interested in,” she said.
Then Food Network reached out to Bohn in January.
And she went for it.
In the cookie challenge show hosted by Eddie Jackson and Ree Drummond, five contestants compete for the chance to win $10,000.
The episode includes two rounds, with two bakers getting eliminated in the first one. Three bakers then compete for the money in the second round.
Bohn said viewers can expect to see cookies designs that will look like “going back in time to the prehistoric age of what Christmas will be like then” in the first round.
In the second round, the contestants craft “3D cookie vehicles for getting around the North Pole,” she said in an Instagram post.
“It was a whirlwind experience for sure,” she told McClatchy News.
Bohn believes she inherited her artistic talent from her father and grandfather, who was a professor in art. She dabbled in other arts and crafting hobbies before turning to cookie baking.
Custom cookies from Driftless can be ordered through her website.
This story was originally published December 9, 2022 at 9:16 AM with the headline "Washington cookie maker to compete for $10,000 on Food Network Christmas challenge."
