The competition begins with a deliciously difficult pre-heat as the eight Halloween bakers weave spider web desserts with creatures trapped inside. In the main heat, wily witch hunter John Henson challenges the bakers to create melting desserts that reveal a Halloween item inside.

In the Silence of the Yams pre-heat challenge, bakers make yam desserts that evoke classic scary movie cliches from chainsaws and hockey masks to bloody knives and creepy dolls. In the main heat, the bakers turn a pumpkin patch into a "bundtkin patch" by creating a pumpkin patch out of mini bundt cakes.

It's bridal season for Halloween lovers and since bridal showers often have petit fours, the bakers are creating "petit horrors" in the pre-heat challenge. In the main heat, it's time for a Halloween wedding! Each happy couple -- vampire and troll, werewolf and mummy, skeleton and robot, witch and goblin, zombie and ghost -- gets a unique Halloween wedding cake.

A group of talented bakers enter the fortune-telling tent at the Circus of Dread in the pre-heat challenge. The competitors are tasked with creating tarot card desserts featuring blood orange, fig or passion fruit. The bakers then enter the Creepy Clown Hall of Fame in the main heat where they create impressive desserts that will land one of them in the finale.

Inspired by a skull man, the bakers enter the graveyard to bring skull desserts to life in the pre-heat; for the main heat, the bakers must create a nightmare cake based on common nightmare themes; the bakers must face their fears to come out on top.