This local chef will compete in an upcoming Food Network holiday baking show
Myrtle Beach Resident Geoff Blount is hoping to bake his way to success this holiday season.
Blount will be a contestant on Food Network’s Holiday Baking Championship starting this November. As a culinary instructor in Myrtle Beach, he wants to show his family, students and the whole Grand Strand that anything can be done through hard work, staying organized and being passionate.
“If you understand all the basics, and you can do them cleanly and do them well, hopefully it will translate to a good dessert. And you have to stay clean and stay organized. You cannot work in chaos,” Blount said.
The Holiday Baking Championship will begin on Nov. 4 at 9 p.m. on the Food Network channel. It is a competitive cooking show where 10 chefs will see who can make the best holiday classic baked goods for the chance to win $25,000.
It will be hosted by former NFL quarterback and The Bachelor Contestant Jesse Palmer. The chefs’ baking will be judged by Nancy Fuller, Duff Goldman and Lorraine Pascale.
“It’s a great group of people. What a great group of competitors, all super nice. It was a family atmosphere,” he said.
Blount grew up with southern cooking and ingredients. He remembers hanging out during the holidays cooking pastry-like pecan pie with his family. His formal training began at the Piedmont Technical College in Charlotte where he began focusing on baked goods with a French training.
“I started specializing in pastry, and I’m really interested in the science of it,” Blount said. “We’re known in the South for having super, super sweet deserts with a lot of sugar. But with my French training, I’ve definitely taken that wonderful southern rich goodness and tempered it with a little bit of the French style.”
When cooking, he often ties in southern ingredients like blackberries and paw paws into his creations. In the show, he tried to highlight to a national audience some of the local ingredients that make southern baked goods unique.
Blount currently works as a baking and pastry instructor at Horry-Georgetown Technical College’s International Culinary Institute of Myrtle Beach. He said the institute produces so many talented students and he hopes that brings more culinary opportunities to the Grand Strand. And he hopes his appearance on Food Network will help inspire other chefs in the area.
Southern food was often downplayed in the past, Blount said, but now it is getting attention across the globe for being fun and sustainable. He said recently someone in California asked him about chicken bog, an Horry County staple dish.
“Let’s face it, for the longest time the Myrtle Beach area was about quick buffets and quick desserts,” he said. “We’ve got a lot of culinary students coming out of this program. It’s great to once again help the Grand Strand cause of getting culinary on the map here.”
For Blount, the Culinary Institute is great in helping showcase the local cuisine, inspiring local kids to become chefs and try new foods. He said folks should consider swinging by the institute and checking out the Layers Bakery, farmers market and restaurant.
The Layers Bakery is open Monday through Thursday, 8 a.m. through 2 p.m., and is located at 920 Crabtree Lane in Myrtle Beach. It showcases baked goods made by students at the institute.
“The products that come out of my students is a direct relation to what we do in the classroom,” Blount said.
