Colton resident makes it on Food Network’s ‘Christmas Cookie Challenge’ airing Thursday

Regional baker Casey Bates landed a dream stint on Food Network’s “Christmas Cookie Challenge” that airs Thursday night for a $10,000 prize.

Fittingly, the show’s farm theme – and challenge – made her feel right at home.

Bates, 39, runs her cookie business – Casey Bates Creates – in Colton, Washington, where she lives with husband Nick, a native of the agricultural town south of Pullman.

“Each episode has a different theme, and ours was ‘Christmas on the North Pole Farm,’ so we did farm-animal decorated cookies doing a Christmas tradition,” said Bates, who daily does custom orders for clients at both nearby universities, towns and the regional hospital.

The show’s hosts had fun with her Hallmark-like story, how she moved from a Georgia city to the rural community three years ago, while operating her bakery enterprise.

“They said to me on the show, ‘You’re just living your own Hallmark movie,’ because I shared how I moved from the city to the country, and I run this cookie business,” Bates said. “They were just laughing it up.”

Bates can’t yet share many details on how the cookie contest ends, after she competed against three other bakers, except that she makes it past the first round.

“I can say the filming consisted of two rounds of baking, one initial 90-minute round and a second 2½-hour main challenge,” she said. “I did make both rounds. One person goes home after the first round.”

Bates said the filming near Los Angeles earlier this year was fun and intense. She described feeling a bit awestruck near “The Pioneer Woman” Ree Drummond, who judges with Eddie Jackson, a private chef and former NFL player.

“There were a lot more cameras pointed at me than I thought there was going to be,” Bates added. “When they tell you, ‘Your time starts now,’ it starts now. There is no stopping, no redos, no outtakes – so that was really exciting. You’re left to your own devices.”

But she enjoyed the main cookie challenge the most: showcasing her overall skills in decorating cookies while adding a flavor twist.

“That’s what I do on a day-to-day basis, so I really wanted to succeed in that first round,” she said. “I used a new holiday flavor that I have not used yet. You wanted to come up with something different to wow the judges. That was part of the challenge.”

Bates honed her skills in a Georgia bakery job for about 10 years and discovered royal icing artistry for fine outlining, writing and allowing “to keep adding detail on detail.”

She started as an art major at the University of Georgia and ended up with an education degree. Baking proved to be her path. By late 2019, she launched her cookie business, and then the couple took a gamble as COVID hit.

“Nick and I actually started doing home deliveries for cookie kits, because people were staying home with their kids. We were out delivering decorate-your-own-cookie boxes. That boomed the business. When events came back around, I was their first call.”

She got another call earlier this year about being on Food Network, when she learned someone had submitted her name into the channel’s talent-seeking forum. “The talent people called me and asked, ‘Would you be interested in doing the show?’ and I said, ‘Of course.’”

Bates met her husband during an internship at an athletic facility in Richmond, Virginia.

The Bates are known around Colton, she said. His parents live there. Nick, an insurance agent, graduated with a sport management and exercise science master’s and is the high school’s volleyball coach. Grandfather Stan Bates was a longtime Washington State University athletic director.

Anticipating the show, “people are so excited here,” she said. “It’s been overwhelming in the best way, because I didn’t realize how many people knew about me. They keep saying things like, ‘You’ve got it in the bag,’ or ‘We know you’re going to win.’

“I just hope I make everyone proud with how I do.”