Aiming for a summer premiere, Disney Channel is hard at work on its first-ever baking competition series Disney Magic Bake-Off.
The company has teamed up with food-focused prodco Tastemade on this unscripted live-action series for six- to 14-year-olds that will pit junior bakers against each other in a series of challenges to create cakes inspired by Disney’s brands.
High School Musical: The Musical: The Series star Dara Reneé (pictured), Issac Brown (Raven’s Home) and Disneyland chef Graciela Gomez will co-host the 13-episode bake-off, which is in production now with Emily Mraz (Broken Bread), Joey Lucas (Beyond the Block) and Julie Reading (Alien News Desk) executive producing.
Tastemade, which created the series, operates a network of food-focused channels on streaming and mobile platforms that reach more than 300 million monthly viewers, according to a release.
Cooking shows have been at the top of the menu for kids entertainment companies lately as they compete for co-viewing audiences. Recently launched SVOD discovery+ ordered a new cooking comedy called Duff’s Happy Fun Bake Time from The Jim Henson Company in March, and Nickelodeon greenlit stop-motion series The Tiny Chef Show from Imagine Kids & Family last year.
In other House of Mouse news, Disney India has picked up Cosmos-Maya’s new medical adventure series Dr. Tenali Rama HMKD (104 x 11 minutes). Aimed at four- to 11-year-olds, the 2D-animated show stars a child doctor who solves people’s health problems. It’s set to launch on Disney’s pay-TV channels later this year.
Disney India has done a lot of business with Cosmos-Maya in the past year. The channel recently picked up animated action-comedy Dabangg (52 x 30 minutes) to launch on Disney+ Hotstar, as well as snapping up linear rights to three 52 x half-hour series—Guddu, Bapu and Gadget Guru Ganesha.