Twin Cities baker brings ‘Minnesota Nice’ to tear-soaked Food Network competition

As soon as Jacob Berman-Jolton arrived at the Wednesday farmers market in Plymouth, he made a beeline for Megan Carroll’s stand.

“We were so terrified for you!” the 28-year-old exclaimed, putting his hands on his head. Berman-Jolton wasn’t terrified that Carroll had run out of his wife’s favorite cookies. Or that Carroll had missed a few markets recently.

Rather, Berman-Jolton has been in suspense about Carroll’s fate on the “Halloween Baking Championship” Food Network competition. The Plymouth-based recipe developer and cottage baker is among 10 contestants creating oozing, spooky confections during this season’s seven-episode march toward Halloween.

Carroll’s quest to claim the show’s $25,000 prize almost came to an end during its Sept. 15 premiere episode, after a mushy chocolate cake put her in the bottom three bakers. Judges described her elimination-round tiramisu with a dismissive “nice.”

“I’m Minnesota nice,” Carroll replied.

In person, Carroll is quick to point out her Minnesota bona fides, often poking fun at her thick, Midwestern accent. The 37-year-old was raised in Maple Grove. And Carroll’s parents sold sculpted gourds at the same farmers market where she now sells cookies, sourdough bread and perfumes.

The baking didn’t start until later, once Carroll moved back to the Twin Cities after college in Salem, Mass. But Carroll didn’t start selling her creations until recently, after artificial intelligence platforms gobbled up her food photography business, she said.

“If I’m gonna dream real big: if I was ever like the Minnesota Martha Stewart,” said Carroll, pausing to think about the controversy-ridden domestic maven. “The Minnesota nice, Martha Stewart.”

In its first episode, the show latched onto Carroll’s Minnesota quirks. She gave the camera a “you betcha” in her first confessional, and another one later to the judges.

But as producers kept dipping back into the pot of Carroll’s Midwestern charm, viewers such as Berman-Jolton feared the show was veering toward played-out television tropes of Minnesota characters.

“You roll your eyes a little bit when they play up the ‘Minnesota Nice,’” he said, “because it’s what everyone thinks of us.”

Still, Berman-Jolton said he appreciated Minnesota getting what he described as much-needed airtime. And the “Minnesota nice” didn’t seem as much of a schtick on Carroll as it might be for others, he said. Berman-Jolton and his wife Sam Akin are regular customers and Carroll had baked an extra batch of cookies for them before a two-week absence from the farmers market (but they still didn’t last, Akin said).

“Megan comes off in the show exactly how she comes off in real life,” Berman-Jolton concluded.

In the premiere episode, it was someone else’s kindness that gave Carroll another chance. As she prepared to defend her tiramisu, another contestant gave up his spot in the show, in part to spare Carroll from elimination.

“I’m never not gonna feel guilty about the fact that I got to stay,” Carroll said. “That’s where that imposter syndrome comes back, and it’s very much like I wasn’t good enough, but I got this magic moment where now I get to stay.”

On screen, Carroll left the episode in tears. In his Plymouth home, Berman-Jolton said he did, too.

“It was just so noble,” he said.