This time of year seems dedicated to the sweetest of pastimes:  baking.  We all love toothsome sweets, and the triple threat of Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas provides an ample casus belli for our bellies to consume large quantities of goodies.

But some take their passion for baking to another level entirely.  For those of us who view baking as popping break-and-bake cookies into the oven and setting a timer, we can’t comprehend how bakers are able to do that with sugar, flour, and water.

Baking combined with engineering is the premise for the show Audre Myers is reviewing this week.  If you want a cake with the structural integrity of an earthquake resistant building, then this series is where you’ll find it.

With that, here is Audre’s review of Baking Impossible:

What do you get when you combine baking and engineering?

That’s the premise of this competition. Bakers are paired with engineers they’ve not met before and the two-person teams must try to fulfill each challenge for a $100,000 prize. The judges are Andrew Smyth (bakineering specialist), Joanne Chang (baking specialist), and Hakeem Oluseyi (engineering specialist). I first came across Andrew when he was in season seven of The Great British Baking Show. At that time, he was going to university to get his engineering degree. Today, he’s an aerospace engineer for Rolls-Royce Holdings designing jet engines. He was a very good baker on Bake Off (the English name for the baking show). I wasn’t familiar with Joanne Chang, but I had seen Hakeem many times on the science channel and in other venues.

The first challenge the teams had to be successful at was making a sailboat out of baking ingredients (and finished baking treats for the judges to taste) and the engineers had to help the bakers with the sort of physics that would make the sailboat float a certain distance on water, driven by a wind fan.

I was afraid, at first, that the program would just be silly but that fear was laid to rest watching the engineers working with the bakers. What started out as baker and engineer, became a two-way street as the engineers would also assist in the preparations of whatever the taste test would be, helping their bakers to get finished on time. Or when the bakers offered suggestions to the engineers regarding ingredients that might make the engineers look at a problem a different way. But that happened as the series went on; it wasn’t that way to begin with as the teams had to get to know and learn their team mates strengths and weaknesses. Sometimes, it wasn’t pretty.

There were several challenges that were jaw dropping and that made me wish I had a talent for math. Or baking! But even the challenges that appear whimsical are a feat of engineering and the bakers knowing their craft and ingredients so well.

I strongly suggest watching Baking Impossible; it’s not your gran’ma’s cooking show.

Trailer: