Kyle Caulkins, a pastry chef at Kiawah Island Golf resort, is competing on season 12 of Food Network’s Halloween Baking Championship. Rob Pryce/Food Network/Provided
Kyle Caulkins, a pastry chef at Kiawah Island Golf resort, is competing on season 12 of Food Network’s Halloween Baking Championship. Rob Pryce/Food Network/Provided
KIAWAH ISLAND — A South Carolina pastry chef known on the show as “Young Kyle” is seemingly the one to beat on the Food Network’s latest cooking show.
Kyle Caulkins, a 22-year-old pastry cook at The Sanctuary, is one of 10 contestants on the Food Network’s “Halloween Baking Championship,” which kicked off Sept. 14. The winner with the creepiest confections at the end of season 12 takes home a $25,000 grand prize.
Caulkins is one of two Kyles on the show and about 10 years younger than majority of the other constants, who have been whittled down to six as of Oct. 5. But despite being the brunt of jokes, such as judges asking if he has a permission slip to be there and contestants teasing he needs to go to his room for making a mess at his station, Caulkins is blowing the competition away.
“Yes, I’m young, but if I was the bakers, I’d be a little scared,” Caulkins said.
And rightfully so. He went into the show thinking it would be a “monumental achievement” to beat the other nine players, even at his age. And he did.
The first two weeks of the show, his pastries were named the best of the best by the judges, Stephanie Boswell, Aarti Sequeira and Zac Young.
Caulkins won the premiere Sept. 14 episode for his take on Halloween by creating a pillowcase filled with candy — a childhood trick-or-treat memory he shares with his sister. He won again in week two for his rabid taxidermy deer cake that even had edible foam coming out of its mouth.
The judges called his food a “delight” to eat, saying his work was “beautiful,” “magical” and “delicate.”
On latest episode that aired Oct. 5, he created a crumbling castle haunted by vampire cookies — a concoction that earned him a “chef’s kiss” praise.
The praise hasn’t won him any friends.
“I want to beat young Kyle,” contestant Lisa Pak, a home bakery owner in New York, joked on the Sept. 28 episode. “I’m getting tired of him sitting up there.”
In a twist of fate, Caulkins ended up among the bottom bakers on that episode. The challenges centered on Disney themes, where he made a cake showcasing a hero and villain and then a seemingly floating magic mirror made of isomalt. His base for the latter was his famous bonfire bars — an “elevated more adult s’mores experience” he said, with a graham sable bottom, brownie and chocolate chip cookie layers, topped with an orange marshmallow.
Caulkins said growing up in Connecticut, where he lived before moving to the Charleston area, his family always knew he loved pastry.
In 2023, he graduated from Johnson & Wales University and said cooking school “opened up my world to so many classic techniques i didn’t even know about.”
Now at 22, he’s a pastry chef at the Kiawah Island Golf Resort, which has been rooting him on the entire way.
“Starting this competition as the youngest competitor by almost 10 years, i had to stand up for myself and advocate for me first because I know I have what it takes,” he said. “I want to win and i can achieve whatever i want.
The next episode of the “Halloween Baking Challenge” airs Oct. 12 on Food Network and the following day on HBO Max.
