Rising to the Challenge: West Jordan’s Melanie Bjork-Jensen on Halloween Baking Championship

Turn on Food Network's 11th season of Halloween Baking Championship on Monday nights and you'll spot a familiar face: West Jordan's own Melanie Bjork-Jensen.

From YouTube university to national TV, Bjork-Jensen was one of 10 bakers chosen from thousands of applicants. She had to prove she could manage the kitchen, had the "right personality" for TV, and could bake against the clock.

She began her self-education when her two children were little. She wanted to make them special birthday cakes, but then she got "really into it," she said, and soon after Cakes by Melanie was born.

But baking is only one layer of the cake. Most people take on one career. Melanie Bjork-Jensen manages four.

She is the woman there for you in all your biggest moments: A labor and delivery nurse who ushers babies into the world, and a hospice nurse who helps people pass peacefully. A mother of two bright and wonderful children, for whom she would "level nations" and a continual medical student with plans to "knock out graduate programs every two years."

During filming, she "felt like it was a completely different universe where everything is Halloween, everything is bakers." Then after everything was over, she was "plopped back into the real world," and wasn't allowed to say a single thing about her experience.

Now that episodes are airing, she says reality is setting in. "Oh my gosh, that was real. It's alarming and exciting and embarrassing."

Catch her every Monday on the Food Network, where you can see her rise to the challenge, lend a helping hand, and thrill the judges. Some of her most memorable quotes from the show so far include:

"Did you know on brain scans that people who speak more than one language have double the synaptic bursts?"

"I will fight you off. I'm scrappy and a little unstable so don't test me."

"I'll hold your hand while you die."

"I am so happy to listen to smarter brains than me. You acknowledge you're dumb and you ask someone not dumb."

Whether in the kitchen, with patients, or with her arms elbow-deep in flour, Melanie Bjork-Jensen proves she can handle the heat-both in the oven and in life.

By Erin Dixon