Silly? Sure, but the Harry Potter baking show provides much-needed magic in a muggle’s world

April 15, 2026 — 5:00am

It’s all very well for Daniel Radcliffe and Emma Watson. Front and centre of the Harry Potter film franchise, they were beautifully positioned to leverage their fame as young wizards to pursue successful film careers.

But what of all the actors who filled out the supporting cast at Hogwarts? Integral parts of the Potterverse, but not famous enough to leap from wizardry to stardom, how could they use their association with the mega-successful films to support themselves through adulthood?

The answer is obvious: host a Harry Potter-themed baking show. And so identical twins James and Oliver Phelps, who you may remember as identical twins Fred and George Weasley (though don’t worry if you’ve forgotten), have landed the plumb job of guiding groups of brave and brilliant bakers through their paces in Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking.

The contestants arrive in puffs of smoke in the fireplace, which is somehow both incredibly naff and ineffably cool.

You can see how the concept was created: a clever producer wrote “Harry Potter: Wizards of ----” on a whiteboard and then spun a big wheel to find out what they were going to be wizards of.

The show’s premise is very simple: The Phelps lads, now grown and rather dishy and thankfully not insisting on dressing alike, welcome pairs of aspiring baking stars to the Harry Potter film sets at Warner Bros studios. The contestants arrive in puffs of smoke in the fireplace, which is somehow both incredibly naff and ineffably cool. The contestants are given a series of challenges, all of which involve creating spectacular desserts inspired by various parts of the Potter saga.

In the first episode, the bakers compete to earn tickets on the Hogwarts Express, which takes them from Platform 9¾ to various other sets from the movies – Gringotts Bank, Dumbledore’s office, the Great Hall et al – where they face a new challenge in each location.

Each of the bakers competing is not just an ace with pastry: they are also true Harry Potter fanatics. At least they say they are. Without accusing anyone of sharp practice, let’s just say that the fabulous prizes on offer provide an incentive for an ambitious baker to binge-watch the films over a weekend and then put “HARRY POTTER IS MY LIFE” on their application form.

But whatever the case, everyone seems pretty up to speed on the story by the time they arrive at Warner Bros. And whatever the depth of their passion for the wizarding world, what is not in doubt is their ability to make truly gobsmacking cakes and desserts.

If, as Arthur C. Clarke said, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic, then it’s fair enough to call these bakers sorcerers, because they’re making dishes that are definitely sufficiently advanced to convince me that dark arts are being employed.

Huge, elaborate tableaux: cauldrons and enchanted trees and hats and wands and dragons, all edible. An edible badger! A toothsome stallion patronus! A teller’s desk from Gringotts made of cake! I don’t mean a cake that looks a bit like a desk – this is not the goblin-desk version of the Australian Women’s Weekly piano cake. It’s a DESK. You couldn’t tell it’s not a real desk except by cutting a slice and gulping it down.

So brilliant are all these bakers – including those who don’t even make it past the first round – that whenever the judges, culinary celebs Carla Hall and Jozef Youssef, criticise any element (“the cake’s a bit heavy, this corner is messy”, etc), you feel like leaping up and screaming, “LEAVE THEM ALONE! THESE PEOPLE HAVE PERFORMED MIRACLES BEFORE YOUR VERY EYES, AND ALL YOU CAN DO IS FIND FAULT, YOU PETTY TYRANTS! MINUS FIFTY POINTS FROM SLYTHERIN!”

And that’s why this show really is magic. It’s the most basic of premises, and honestly the cynicism is – if you’ll excuse the expression – baked in to this concept. It’s a cash-in, a little cheapie baking contest designed to squeeze out some more revenue from a multimedia juggernaut – and, as mentioned, grant a bit of work to hard-working ex-wizards such as the eternally sweet and likeable Phelps twins (and the guest judges who pop up, Potter alumni such as Warwick Davis and Evanna Lynch). It’s extremely easy to roll your eyes at the very idea of Wizards of Baking and think, “Good God, ENOUGH”.

But then, the movies themselves were cash-ins, too. The Harry Potter world, like all mass entertainment franchises, exists to make money. And yet the Harry Potter books and movies have a precious place in the hearts of millions. Wizards of Baking, a genuinely silly little show, won’t achieve that status, but when you see the impossible wonders that these enchanters have wrought from flour and sugar, eggs and chocolate … well, in this muggle’s world, it’s worth holding on to every bit of magic we find.