Queer Eye food expert Antoni Porowski makes the perfect host for Netflix’s Easy-Bake Battle (available now). The king of culinary shortcuts is all about making life easy. “Good food doesn’t have to be complicated or fancy,” he tells us. This show is about the “heroes of the home kitchen” making uncomplicated fare – sometimes using “clever tricks to cheat their way to easy and delicious dishes”.
Phew! Except because it’s Netflix and there has to be some jeopardy, contestants stand to win $100k.
Adorable Antoni (to dislike him is to not have a soul) introduces three contestants and gives them half an hour to create a post-boozer, “greasy, carb-loaded guilty pleasure” midnight snack. It must be fried (the ‘bake’ part of the show’s name is a mystery), include cheese and come with a sauce. There’s no time to say the full names of ingredients, so we must endure the likes of “cilanch” and “mozz”.
Two contestants naturally choose to make… wontons – though they don’t resemble the Chinese dumplings UK viewers might expect. Another opts for loaded potato bites, revealing an ‘easy hack’ of wrapping spuds in wet paper towels before microwaving, to make peeling easy. It’s the show’s only non-blindingly-obvious tip.
The treats look good, but one cook gets the boot and the others are charged with making an entrée out of only frozen or pantry ingredients. In a slightly pointless bit of business, they must use an oven that is only operational for 40 minutes.
The results are impressive – who knew you could bake dry pasta, or make a sauce out of canned mushroom soup and fish-shaped ‘parmesan crisps’? Winner Haley’s charred broccoli is pretty ingenious, too.
That said, it’s hard to imagine recreating anything here: drunk people visit kebab shops, and anyone trying the main courses would do it properly.
Easy-Bake is charming enough – but it’s hamstrung by its focus on convenience. Wouldn’t you just order something in?
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