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As a baking & pastry student, you can explore how to frost delicate cakes or bake flaky French bread in the classroom. But it’s also a good idea to get outside of the classroom to expand your ideas of what’s possible and to find out what other chefs are doing.
One fun way to do this doesn’t even involve travel—you can tune in to baking competition shows from the comfort of your couch and observe how other pastry chefs and bakers experiment with modern baking techniques.
Not only can you examine how these individuals perform under high pressure, but you can also get fresh recipe ideas and grow your knowledge. Keep reading to find out the top seven baking competitions that should be on your watch list now.
1. The Great British Baking Show
Known as The Great British Bake Off in the United Kingdom, this award-winning, light-hearted Netflix baking competition show started in the UK in 2010. Bakers compete in various challenges that span homemade cakes, pastries, bread, and other treats. Every episode consists of three challenges contestants must complete before elimination.
The first challenge is called “the signature bake,” which allows contestants to leverage their creative flair and execute a unique twist on a traditional recipe. During the second challenge, bakers undergo a technical round and must generate a close-to-perfect replica of a recipe, with limited instructions. The last “showstopper” challenge allows bakers to show off their baking and pastry chops by assembling an elaborate masterpiece.
Each episode is judged by Paul Hollywood, the UK’s leading artisan baker, and Prue Leith, a revered culinary expert. The show is highly entertaining and has a lot of feel-good elements to it. It also showcases some serious skill and technique, and culinary school students can probably pick up some tips in each episode.
Baking and pastry involve artistry and science alike.
2. Bake Squad
Bake Squad premiered on Netflix in 2021 and is hosted by Christina Tosi—the famous Founder and Pastry Chef of Milk Bar bakery. Four talented bakers come together to create an intricate, jaw-dropping dessert for a client in each episode. Usually, these masterpieces push bakers to their limits, and oftentimes, they request guidance from Tosi herself.
Desserts can range from basic to elaborate, and often call for high levels of skill.
A rotating panel of celebrity guest judges evaluates the bakers’ creations based on presentation, taste, and adherence to the challenge rules.
What’s unique in this show is that each of the four bakers has a specialty, from “pastry illusionist” to an expert in chocolate, another in cakes, and a chef who pairs unusual flavors. Pastry students can get a glimpse into what it means to specialize in an area, not to mention observing how different chefs interpret clients’ requests.
3. Cake Wars
Even though Cake Wars on Food Network no longer airs new episodes, this highly-competitive baking show showcases a lot of expertise when it comes to the niche of cake baking.
Actor Jonathan Bennett hosted these grueling challenges, where four bakers would face off in a themed event to potentially win a cash prize of $10,000. In each episode, contestants must leverage their expert baking skills to execute highly-detailed confections—judged on presentation and taste.
Gorgeous cake with intricate detail work from Online Pastry Arts student Kari J.
Although there are a number of episodes to view, one of the most memorable is the Season 3, Star Wars cake competition that celebrated the release of a Disney Star Wars video game. Pastry students can watch the show and see how different people work under pressure and how they prioritize and manage their time in that kind of environment.
4. Baking Impossible
Baking Impossible, which ran for two seasons, was one of the most high-stakes baking shows on TV— a Netflix series where professional bakers and engineers worked together to create edible “bakineering” creations. As the trailer states, “We’re demanding incredible ingenuity to make the impossible just quite possible.”
Contestants were paired off into nine teams, where they faced a series of daunting challenges that must survive an architectural stress test and taste evaluation. Several more Baking Impossible matches also involved robotics and fashion—requiring specific technical skills to win the grand prize of $100,000.
The show was unique in the kind of expertise it required of contestants and for its pairing of bakers and engineers. As a baking and pastry student, you already know you need to use chemistry—but what kind of ideas might you get from the engineers?
5. Is It Cake?
In this Netflix show, hosted by actor Mikey Day (best known for his role on Saturday Night Live), cake artists bake replicas of real-life objects in an attempt to fool celebrity judges. The judges are shown a group of objects and try to guess which one is the cake.
Is It Cake? is based on a popular trend on TikTok and YouTube in which content creators ask viewers to guess which items they’re filming are cake and which are real.
The cake artists show off impressive molding and decorating skills, and baking and pastry students might walk away with ideas for their own creations. There’s a heavy use of fondant—a moldable or pourable type of icing—in this show, and students can judge for themselves when and how it works well, and when it might cross the line into showmanship above flavor.
6. Crime Scene Kitchen
Crime Scene Kitchen works its way backwards from the typical baking competition show. A fun twist on murder mysteries, the show has contestants encounter the remains of a dessert along with clues about its ingredients, then try to figure out what it was and recreate the recipe.
Hosted by actor Joel McHale with celebrity chef Curtis Stone and influencer Yolanda Gampp (co-founder of How To Cake It) serving as judges along with a rotating slate of guest judges, the show debuted in 2021. Not only is the show entertaining, but baking and pastry students can watch it and dig into how to reverse engineer a recipe. It’s fun and thought-provoking to follow the clues and watch how contestants try to piece them together.
7. Blue Ribbon Baking Championship
Debuting in 2024 on Netflix, Blue Ribbon Baking Championship features blue ribbon-winning bakers from around the country who face off in different challenges, with a $100,000 prize on the line.
Actor Jason Biggs and TV chef Sandra Lee of Semi-Homemade fame host the show, which is binge-worthy entertainment. An elimination-style competition, contestants make everything from potato candy and cotton candy cupcakes to French fry-inspired cookies and, with American Pie star Biggs hosting, there are, of course, pies. (Regardless, the show gets reviews for being wholesome.)
The show is mainly tinged with state fair nostalgia but does feature expertise from the likes of Lee as well as appearances from former White House Executive Pastry Chef Bill Yosses and celebrity artisan baker Bryan Ford.
Expand Your Skills Through Baking Competition Shows
Many professional bakers and pastry chefs say that to become an expert-level chef, you’ll always be a lifelong learner. Aside from expanding your skills by watching baking competition shows, you can also elevate your knowledge through Escoffier’s Baking & Pastry program.
From cake decorating and artisan bread baking to menu planning and foodservice management, this curriculum can help you turn your pastry career dreams into reality. Contact our admissions team to take the next step.
TO DISCOVER MORE ABOUT BAKING & PASTRY, CHECK THESE ARTICLES OUT NEXT:
- 7 Cake Decorating Techniques Every Pastry Chef Needs to Know
- What Are the Baking and Pastry Arts…And Is It for You?
- How Much Can Baking Classes Cost?
*This information may not reflect every student’s experience. Results and outcomes may be based on several factors such as geographical region or previous experience.
This article was originally published on June 2, 2023 and has since been updated.
