According to host Mikey Day, “millions of people questioned reality” after the first series of Is It Cake? in 2022. Could we trust any given object wasn’t secretly some sort of sponge?

Perhaps more confounding is the commissioning of a second season: Is It Cake Too? (Netflix, available now). The object-or-cake trend was already old hat by the time the first one came out, apart from anything else.

This time around, despite Day’s claim to have “flipped the script”, the formula has only been slightly tweaked. This time, 10, not nine, “cake artists” compete for a stack of cash – a 20% better $120k.

And where last time out three cakesters competed together, this time it’s five. The first episode’s quintet are told to recreate another food with which they feel a personal connection, but only get one decoy at judging time.

If the format is a little flat, the show’s bakers are peppy and enthusiastic. Several have cake-related businesses and one – Liz – teaches, and has a book published about, the art of decorating. She makes a creepy, massive crab, while Jarid fashions a soup pot and an onion with impressively papery skin. Fine artist Miko crafts a basket of mangoes and doubles down on his Filipino heritage by flavouring them with ube yams.

After 10 hours, the impressive work is done – but even with about 10 seconds per cake, at 20 paces, the celeb judges manage to guess most of them fairly easily. Despite showcasing some staggering (if rather specific) talent, it feels like Is It Cake? is already somewhat overbaked.

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