“I wanted to win really bad”—Spring Baking Championship star Jon’nae opens up after her shocking elimination

Spring Baking Championship season 11, episode 4, was released on March 31, 2025. The episode celebrated April Fools' Day and the contestants had to make desserts that looked like savory dishes. Their first challenge was to make a dessert that looked like an egg inside and out, while the second challenge was to make a sweet treat that looked like dinner.

After both the tasks, Jon'nae "Jaye" Smith and Kareem Youngblood were the two contestants who failed to wow the judges. Host Jesse Palmer eventually declared that it was Jon'nae who was going home. After she was eliminated, Jon'nae said:

"I wanted to win really bad. I did."

Before Jesse put Jon'nae in the bottom, he pointed out that her fish dish was deceptive enough to fool the judges but on the inside, it lacked flavor. After she was eliminated, Jon'Nae told the cameras that her message for her cast mates was that she wanted them to "kick b*tt" and take names later.

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Dishes that led to Jon'nae's elimination in Spring Baking Championship season 11 episode 4

When the Spring Baking Championship contestants were instructed to make a dessert that resembled an egg inside and out, Jon'nae said that she was going to focus on her flavor profiling. She added that she was also going to play around with spices.

She said she wanted to make her eggshell out of White Cake Pop and fill it with strawberry butter cream. For the yolk, she was going to use blood orange and ginger. She said:

"My concern is not the inside of the egg, my concern is definitely the outside."

She said that it was "spooky time" because she wasn't an expert at tempering chocolate. She mentioned that she would attempt tempering the white chocolate into an egg and putting a sugar flower on top of it.

Further in the episode of Spring Baking Championship, host Jesse noted that Jon'nae was popping her eggs out of the mold when there were only 15 minutes left. That's when Jon'Nae realized that her chocolate shells weren't popping out. With no time left to make new ones, Jon'nae decided to take her genoa halves and glaze them with white chocolate so that she had something to put on the plate.

When she presented her dish to the judges, Kardea said that while Jon'nae's dish was pretty to look at, it didn't look like an egg. However, when the judge broke into it and the yolk center was unveiled, she acknowledged that it did look like an egg on the inside. Nancy said that she loved the spice in the blood orange yolk.

In her second challenge, Jon'nae had to make a dessert that looked like Fish & Chips. She told Jesse that she wanted a redemption from her first challenge so she was working extra hard on this one. She told the Spring Baking Championship cameras:

"I made it to the fourth week, and I'm like, girl, you gotta keep pushing cause' you cannot go home."

She explained that she would make her fish from a pound cake. Jon'nae added that she would opt for a champagne buttercream to fill it. For fries, she said she was going to make them out of sugar cookie cut fries. When Jon'nae pulled out her fries out of the oven, she saw that they had turned into "steak fries" which weren't ideal but she had to use them.

Then, she presented her dish to the Spring Baking Championship judges. Nancy told her that her fillet didn't look like a fish and neither did her fries. Duff said that her cake was nice. Jon'nae was then sent home at the end of the episode because her dish failed to impress the panelists.

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New episodes of Spring Baking Championship season 11 come out on Mondays at 8 pm ET, on Food Network.