in the know
THIS IS Food Network’s newest baking competition, Candy Land, is a real-life version of the game— and the set is totally edible!
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ood Network takes its competitions seriously, but the newest baking show, Candy Land, is all fun and games: The network teamed up with Hasbro, the company that makes Candy Land, to create life-size edible replicas of the board game’s iconic lands including Gumdrop Mountains, Peppermint Forest and Lollipop Woods. Competitors create cakes inspired by each spot—and they pull their ingredients directly from the set! Filming a show like this was a dream come true, says host Kristin Chenoweth, but it also came with challenges: An actual chocolate river flowed through Chocolate Mountain, “and I may or may not have stepped in it... in Manolo Blahnik heels,” she says. Here’s how the show came together. —Jessica Dodell-Feder
Host Kristin Chenoweth
seeing is believing The competitors “freaked out” when they walked onto the set, says Kristin of the 20 sugar and cake artists on the show. “Seeing it for the first time, one of the competitors started crying, then laughing. She couldn’t believe it.”
sugar rush
The initial candy order for the show included more than 150 types of sweets, weighing more than 650 pounds! In the mix: giant lollipops, gumdrops, sprinkles, peppermints, caramels, gumballs and blocks of chocolate.
