At the ripe old age of 29, Samantha Kardas found herself suddenly transported from the cozy confection kitchen of The Bakery in downtown New Paltz to the bright lights and big stage of Netflix’s popular new series, Sugar Rush Christmas, Season 2.
“They found my dad, and then he brought me into it as his partner,” said Kardas about her presence on the popular high-pressured televised bake-off. Her father, Todd Kardas, is a pastry chef at a restaurant in New Jersey.
“When I was seven years old, my dad started taking me to work with him, and I grew up learning that art,” she said. Kardas also had formal training at the esteemed Culinary Institute of America (CIA) in Hyde Park. “Honestly, I think I learned more being around my dad than I did at the CIA, but that looks better on a résumé,” she said.
Her skills were good enough to get her in the door at The Bakery, a local institution that has been fueling New Paltz with roasted coffee, café-fresh delights and desserts for the past four decades. Kardas, who now in her ninth month of pregnancy, has been creating cakes, cupcakes, cookies, muffins, scones and sinfully delicious pastries for the past six years there. She and to co-workers share the responsibility of ensuring that The Bakery is full in the morning and that everything flows, she explained. “We’re always bouncing off one another, and enjoy coming up with new ideas for muffins and scones and cakes. I love making cakes.”
She recalled having made an Eiffel tower cake with her father one time, as well as interpreting cards that people write for cake orders to inspire a specific theme, motif or color scheme. “I love color. Any opportunity I have to use color in my work, I enjoy.”
While The Bakery can have its own rush hours, nothing can quite compare to a timed, themed bake-off with a star-studded panel of judges and three other pairs of contestants. “It was surreal,” said Kardas. “I used to watch the show, and then to be on it? It was the weirdest thing ever, and it’s hard to take in, because the clock was running out so fast!”
The Kardas father/daughter duo were on Episode 6 of Season 2, filmed in February, just before the Covid-19 shutdown and recently streamed on Netflix. They and three other paired contestants they were charged with making a Christmas tree in homage to the carol of the same name.
While frantically mixing, stirring, whipping, rolling, cutting, baking and glazing, Samantha and Todd also had to narrate what they were doing when asked by the judges, one of whom was singer/songwriter Jordan Sparks. “My parents used to always take me to the beach on Christmas, so I thought we’d make a Christmas Beach Tree,” said Todd.
These two made everything themselves. “We’re making an orange-zest vanilla cupcake,” explained Samantha as they worked, “with a cranberry compote filling and a cardamom, goat cheese and cream frosting.” For the decorations, Samantha thought to make fondant and isomalt seashells, because, well, who wouldn’t, right?
Everything seemed to be going swimmingly until her father pulled the cupcakes out of the oven and found that they were sunken. “I forgot the sour cream,” he said, the sweat visible on his forehead. “It’s okay; we’ll lose some time, but just start over,” counseled his apprentice daughter.
In the end, the four judges (plus Sparks) loved the cranberry-and-orange flair, which they felt was well complemented by the sour hints of the goat and cream cheese.
The Kardases made it to the next round, where they again delighted the judges with plates made up of mini-croquembouches and green pâte à choux with brandy-spiked eggnog pastry cream, stacked in the shape of pine trees with a golden star atop. Todd frantically tried to spin sugar by shaking it on forks to enrobe the croquembouches like a garland, but ran out of time.
Still, they moved on to the third and final round, where they had three hours to bake a cake inspired by the song “Up on the Housetop.” They made a three-tiered chocolate cake shaped like a Dr. Seuss-style house with Santa’s boots poking out of a chimney. On the other side was the interior of the house, complete with kids’ bedrooms and a fireplace, mantle, stockings and cookies, all waiting for Santa’s visit. While the idea was ambitious, time was short, and the concoction started to lean a bit.
“The first round was so stressful because my dad was nervous and forgot some key ingredients,” said Samantha. “The second round we did great, and the third round, well …”
For someone who had gone from a seven-year-old girl following her father around the kitchen to a grown woman, CIA graduate, longtime employee of The Bakery, and now expectant mother, making it to the final round of the popular cooking show was worth its weight in sugar and flour. “Having my daughter follow in my footsteps makes me so proud – and to be with her here?” Todd said on the show.
“It was a crazy experience, but I’m so happy that I got to do it with my dad and have that memory together. That made it really special,” Samantha agreed.
Luckily, we locals don’t have to be guest-star judges on Sugar Rush. We can get her bold, colorful artistic treats straight from the oven.
Join the family! 
