(courtesy Showbiz Junkies (c) Netflix)
Cake is something that you presume you will be far happier munching on than evaluating since surely all the pleasure is in the creamy, gnashy, fondanty taste and not the look, no matter how artistic and hyperealistic.
But it turns out that watching people bake cakes and strive to make them look as real as possible in a show known as as Is it Cake?, which has just dropped its 2026 Halloween limited series, is its own kind of deeply pleasurable, non-consumable reward.
Helped along by the fact that the vibe is cooperatively encouraging and charmingly friendly rather than snarkily vicious and dog-eat-dog competitive, Is it Cake? Halloween (2026) is the sort of show that drags you, like a monster yanking a victim to their subterranean doom, into its grasp and does not let you go over three episodes, entertainingly titled, “Nightmare on Cake Street”, “Is It Wednesday?” and “Scaring up a Winner”.
While, yes, it can feel a little happy, clappy, cheery American upbeat, that sense of being assaulted by super-gushy loveliness soon gives way to a delightful sense of watching six contestants – Bonne Bedingfield, Corinna Maguire, Frankie Velez, Mike Elder, Rodolfo Goncalves, and Tiphani Anderson who hail from across the U.S. and Ireland – all of whom are consummately skilled bakers (there is not a hint of Nailed it! to be seen, and nor can there be since the key part of the show is trying to fool judges into thinking your creation is the real thing and not a cake.
Hence the often-shouted, in fun and in this series, faux-creepy tones, title of the show which should really be rendered Is it Cake?!!!!!!! to more accurately reflect its enthusiastically delivered emphasis.
Speaking of the judges, you will likely not have heard of many of them unless you’re super familiar with North American TV programming (the exception being the amazingly funny Kristen Schaal) but in the end that matters little since they, like the contestants, enter into the loud and highly excitable spirit of the show with gusto and zesty glee.
The one exception to their geographical anonymity are the cast members of Wednesday, a, ahem, Netflix show which offers Is it Cake? Halloween the chance to fulfil its cross-promotional duties with resolutely on-season casting which not only reminds people there is a show called Wednesday – important, since like many streaming shows, the yawning gap between seasons is sizeable, during which the mind can wander and the memory of happy seasons past can grow exceedingly dim – but gives three young breakout stars the chance to prove than they can be super excited about cakes and judging which ones are actually edible and which are manifestly not in amongst all their other budding thespian talents.
Who knows where else this may come in handy? Dating a future partner? Making a current spouse feel good? Acting like their nieces or nephews have made the cake-y creation of all time?
The thing here is that they are less called upon to validate the flavours and baking efficacy of the cake creations, thought that does come into it stage-whispered judging deliberations, than they are to pick which of four-to-five near-identical items before them can be eaten and which cannot (unless you are a lover of plastic and metal).
To be quite honest, the fun is less in the judging sections, though that is undoubtedly entertaining and ripe with possibility since contestants, quite obviously, progress to the final round based on their deliberations, but in watching the bakers of the season make their fabulously detailed creations while chatting to the non-competing contestants for that episode who are seated in the “gallery” (really a long couch with fetching cushions) and to each other, which is a real pat-the-stomach, tap the head simultaneously moment because they are trying to banter and explain while concentrating on making some truly complex cakes.
Cakes which must look as real and un-cakey as th decoy items which accompany them during judging.
Quite how none of them don’t shout “Oh dear god, enough of your nattering! Just … let … me … THINK!” is quite beyond me, but then, as observed, Is it Cake? Halloween, and I am presuming the series overall, which also has Christmas aka Holiday editions as well as more garden variety iterations, is all about being charming, warmhearted and full of camaraderie with fellow bakers who, naturally enough in the scripted fun of the show, become each other’s BFFs forever over the eight- and twelve-hour cooking sessions which are mercifully edited to a crowd-pleasing and streaming-friendly fraction of that with, again, shouted (sensing a vocalised them here?) time checks.
Host Mikey Day, an actor and comedian who has a lot of personality and a love of announcing everything, at least in Is it Cake? Halloween with a ghoulish emphasis, has a lot of fun with the time checks as he does with his suitably black and pleasingly well-fitted suits and theatrics which are all but obligatory in a show where big moments and huge reveals, not to mention the tension of whether the contestants efforts will be picked over their non-edible counterparts (fool the judges and you’re through; fail to do so and you’re consigned to spectating from the gallery as a baking has-been), are baked (ahem) into the DNA of the show.
All colour, movement and theatrical artistry, and set decorations which are lavish and garishly impressive, Is it Cake? Halloween delivers, despite its sometimes over-egged saccharine showmanship, with the sort of show which you feel wrapped up in a great big hug of likability, positivity and niceness.
In amongst flavours that sound so delicious you want to fourth-wall rip through the screen and grab a fistful of cake-enhanced goodness, and with contestants (including a very lovely winner) who are so delightful you want to be their best friend (I mean think of the catered sweet catch-ups alone!) and a host who sounds like he has eaten many of the creations and is still the monstrously big sugar high of all sugar highs, Is it Cake? Halloween is a technicolour fun, super enthusiastic tribute to the season, a dose of happiness that actually has you smiling (once you get past how damn excitable everyone is) and shouting at the TV, with happiness and glee that this or that is or isn’t cake, convinced that by guessing correctly that way lies the kind of satisfaction you’ve been searching all your life for.
Is it Cake? Halloween streams on Netflix.