It’s time to practice your favorite pâte sucrée and meringue recipes because it’s Americans’ turn to get back to baking. Following the runaway success of “The Great British Baking Show” (a.k.a. “The Great British Bake Off”), “The Great American Baking Show” premiered in 2015, and after five seasons, but hasn’t been on the air since 2019. However, the show is set to return for a six-episode season on The Roku Channel on Friday, May 5.
The return of the feel-good competition show was announced last summer, and joining “GBBO” judges Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith will be actors and comedians Ellie Kemper and Zach Cherry. Neither is unfamiliar to streaming audiences as Kemper played the title character on Netflix’s “Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt,” and Cherry is one of the stars of Apple TV+’s hit thriller series “Severance.”
Check out the trailer for ‘The Great American Baking Show’:
The new “Great American Baking Show” got a bit of a test run in December with a Celebrity Holiday edition featuring “The Good Place” star D’Arcy Carden, viral host Liza Koshy, Super Bowl Champion Marshawn Lynch, Oscar-winner Nat Faxon, “Saturday Night Live’s” Chloe Fineman, and actor and comedian Joel Kim Booster. No spoilers, but the Showstopper featured some deliciously memorable Holiday Memory Cakes.
Unlike the one-off holiday special, the upcoming season will follow the more standard format, following 12 American bakers who flew to the United Kingdom in order to compete in the same iconic tent that the British version of the show is filmed in.
“I’m rather hoping that these bakers will bring something new to the tent,” Leith said in the trailer. “America is generally the great melting pot of the world.”
The season preview reveals that one of the unusual baking challenges for the season is burgers. Yet, despite hamburgers being about as American as apple pie, one of the contestants shockingly confesses that she’s never eaten a burger before.
“I expect the Americans to know what a burger is,” said Hollywood. “I’ve done a couple of American baking competitions and this is by far and away the best group.”
Not all of the previous seasons of “The Great American Baking Show” are able to be streamed, but you can catch up on available episodes on Hulu, but stay tuned to Roku’s free, ad-supported channel starting next month for all of the low-stakes, heart-warming action from the tent.
Roku Channel
The Roku Channel is a free live TV streaming service that provides 350+ live linear streaming channels and more than 80,000 free movies and TV shows. The library contains entertainment from several different decades, including some major hits.