Summary
Expert cake bakers come together to fool professionals and win big bucks.
Netflix reality series Is It Cake? season 1 was released on the streaming service on March 18, 2022.
Is it an object, or is it a cake? Is It Cake? brings a group of baking artists to create hyper-realistic cakes with the goal to fool the judges to win up to $10,000 per episode. In the final, three contestants go head-to-head to win $15,000.
The money side is odd, they have to work for it. Out of three bakers at a time, the winner will win $5,000 for fooling the judges. Then they have to have their own eyes tested by guessing if something is cake or not. If they guess correctly they can win another $5,000. If they don’t, the money does roll over. I think the final cash prize should have been a lot more, it would have given more at stake and maybe created some heat between the competitors. There is healthy competition and everyone is just so nice so it was missing that pressure that sometimes gives a cooking programme some fire and edge.
Hosted by Mikey Day, this show might not be different in its format, but it is fun, creative and interesting. The host is cheesy, but not annoying or overbearing, he gives a very Jim Carrey vibe in his presenting personality. In the first episode, the challenge is to guess the cake amongst the fast food and the host uses a giant sword to cut the food, sometimes smashing the plates. In episode three there is a giant jenga, so there are some random parts thrown in.
The three judges change every episode, we have people such as: Dayum Drop, Fortune Femester, Ronnie Wood, Michael Yo and Courtney Parchment, each judge is fun, fair and sometimes quite savage. Changing the host every episode doesn’t give much continuity, but it does help as the previous judges would probably be able to tell which is the cake after judging for the first time.
Each episode a baker introduces themselves and we learn how and why they became bakers and why they are on the show. More importantly, how to bake. Although the focus isn’t on the taste or baking technique really, it’s all about how the cake looks, which only made me care about the ending. I could have happily not watched the episode and just watched the last 10/15 mins on the judges trying to figure out which is the cake.
Whilst this series is fun it does not possess the longevity of shows such as The Great British Bake Off and may only last for a few seasons, however, it’s a nice, easy, enjoyable watch. You will like this series if you’ve watched Cupcake Wars, Nailed It! and Extreme Cake Makers.
What did you think of the Netflix reality series Is It Cake? season 1? Comment below.
