5 Holiday Baking Shows To Add To Your Watch List

With the baking season revving up for the holidays, you might be looking for some inspiration for this year's creations. The good news is that your favorite television networks are releasing new episodes of holiday baking shows to get into the spirit. From easy-going competitions to intense rushes to make the most extravagant desserts possible, it will be hard not to get ideas for your holiday baking this year when you watch these shows.

There are many holiday cooking shows to help you create a full menu for your Thanksgiving, Christmas, and New Year's celebrations. For this list, though, we're focusing only on baking. Even if you don't have the equipment or skills to make some of the eye-popping cakes and other treats that the bakers present, you might at least learn some hacks to make your baking easier. And, it doesn't hurt that these shows are full of festive attitude. Keep reading to find out where to watch and what to expect from each of these holiday baking shows.

Brand-new to the Food Network and Magnolia Network, "Gingerbread Land: The Biggest Little Holiday Competition" began airing on Monday, November 17. Teams of bakers will face off in four challenges to build edible, storybook-worthy worlds with incredible detail, motion, and lights. Host Oliver Hudson will provide humor and warmth as the contestants are presented with surprises and twists. At the end of each challenge, the gingerbread holiday scenes will be judged on creativity, design, and structure.

"We wanted to create a show that makes you smile and puts you in the holiday spirit the moment you turn it on," said executive producer Joanna Gaines in a press statement. "Gingerbread Land is all about joy, fun, and a sense of wonder. It's a chance for families to gather, cheer on their favorite creations, and be inspired by the beauty and playfulness of the season." Magnolia Network president Allison Page added, "It's festive, it's joyful, and it's the kind of show families will want to watch together year after year."

You're sure to gain some gingerbread-making tips watching this show. For instance, melted sugar is the hack for a gingerbread house that won't fall apart. New episodes of "Gingerbread Land: The Biggest Little Holiday Competition" will air every Monday at 9 p.m. EST through December 8. The day after the network broadcast, you'll be able to stream each episode on discovery+ and HBO Max.

"The Great British Baking Show" is already a popular series with 16 seasons to watch. In fact, you may have seen some amazing creations in the cookbooks by the cast of "The Great British Bake Off" (as it's called in the United Kingdom). You can expect the same basic format from the holiday spin-off of the show.

There are seven established seasons of "The Great British Baking Show: Holidays," each with two, about one-hour episodes. One episode focuses on Christmas, while the other is themed for New Year's. In the United Kingdom, you can watch "The Great British Bake Off: Festive Specials" on Channel 4. Keep in mind, though, that the new, eighth season on Netflix, as of November 20, 2025, was filmed and aired in the United Kingdom about one year ago.

"The Great British Baking Show: Holidays" features two sets of bakers returning to the series (a different group for each episode), along with some celebrities or special guests, to show off their talents in a festive way. Gathering in a big white tent instead of a studio, each set of contestants participates in a good-natured competition of three challenges that are tailored to the theme of the respective episode. The challenges include the signature, technical, and showstopper format that you're likely already familiar with from the classic show.

The Food Network may have nixed "Christmas Cookie Challenge" and "Holiday Wars" from its 2025 holiday lineup, but its long-running "Holiday Baking Championship" show has returned with new episodes. With 12 seasons under its belt, the newest episodes started airing on November 3, pitting 12 bakers against each other in a high-stakes competition. The prizes in store for the winner include $25,000 and a Food Network Magazine feature, not to mention the title of champion.

Host Jesse Palmer will be back, but new for the series, the 12 bakers have been split into two teams this year: Naughty and Nice. The teams will have to work together to successfully complete holiday-themed challenges, such as Chrismukkah platters, snow day desserts, and naughty elf treats. After an overall winning dessert is chosen for each episode, the team that made it is safe from elimination. Then, the bakers each make a dessert, and the judges — Duff Goldman, Kardea Brown, and Nancy Fuller — choose one baker from the losing team to go home. However, the format and judges for each episode vary slightly to throw in some twists and turns. The bakers eventually have to compete against each other individually in order for one of them to be the ultimate winner.

You can catch the "Holiday Baking Championship" on Food Network via your cable television provider. New episodes are broadcast weekly on Mondays at 8 p.m. EST, and after that, they're available to watch on discovery+ and HBO Max. If you want to watch old seasons of the show, you can see some of them on Hulu.

With three seasons on Netflix, "Is It Cake?" stands out as unique among the competition baking shows. Its format revolves around trying to determine which object on the "cake wall" is cake. This rotating platform with a wall in the center turns to show a display of objects, and a cake is hiding among them. There have been so many realistic cakes on "Is It Cake?" — from tea kettles to stone sculptures — that choosing correctly proves difficult, and the holiday version of the show is no different.

"Is It Cake? Holiday" often starts with host Mikey Day, who brings his "Saturday Night Live" humor, calling for the cake wall to be revealed. The nine returning bakers have just 20 seconds to find which one is actually cake. Whoever gets it right chooses two other bakers to compete against, and they have eight hours to make a hyper-realistic cake of an object on the wall. If the celebrity judges cannot find the cakes among the decoys, that baker wins the round. When more than one baker tricks the judges, a taste test is the tiebreaker. The winner of each round goes to the finale and has the chance to play Cake or Cash? to win money by finding the cake among yet another set of objects on the cake wall. Any money that isn't won is added to the $75,000 prize.

You can watch season one of "Is It Cake? Holiday" on Netflix now if you missed it last year. On November 25, season two of this light-hearted show will be released at 3 a.m. EST. Will you be able to tell which of the cake wall objects is actually cake?

If you're making culture-specific treats or simply want to branch out from the norm, there are a lot of unique holiday desserts from around the world, like struffoli from Italy. "One World Kitchen Bakes the Holidays" is a laid-back, one-episode baking special rather than a competition series. It's a spin-off of Gusto TV's "One World Kitchen," during which chefs from nine different backgrounds share their favorite recipes.

Released in 2016 (but often overlooked), "One World Kitchen Bakes the Holidays" presents four chefs — Vanessa Gianfrancesco, Natalia Machado, Hana Etsuko Dethlefsen, and Pailin Chongchitnant — sharing how they make their traditional holiday treats. These include Italian panforte and struffoli, Argentinian pan dulce and turron, Japanese matcha cheesecake, and Thai shortbread flower cookies.

The slow pace and Christmas music in the background are a relaxing way to get baking ideas for the upcoming holiday. You can watch the episode on the Gusto TV app via your Apple, Android, or Amazon device or directly on the Gusto TV website. Also, it's available on The Roku Channel website, and you may be able to catch it on free television services, such as Samsung TV Plus and Pluto TV.