Everything about the holiday season is delightful and stressful. We love the spirit of the season, festive lights, family traditions and of course the presents. However, it’s hard to imagine the holidays without thinking about the food. Holiday Wars embodies everything we love about cooking for the season.
The smells of grandma’s kitchen virtually waft out of the screen as you watch these incredible bakers and sugar artists compete to make sweet treats. It is hard not to want to bake some cookies after watching this show. Here are ten things you didn’t know about Holiday Wars on Food Network.
1. Not The First
There are so many holiday baking shows, and we don’t just mean those on Food Network. If Holiday Wars seems a little too familiar, you’re not suffering from deja vu. Last year the Holiday Wars featured several talented teams of four who went head to head in various baking challenges to create the coolest, cutest, and most incredibly complex confections for the judges. The winner Adam Gueldener has baked for celebs and friends. One of the hardest parts for him was keeping mum after the competition because it’s against the rules to spill any details about who won until the episode airs.
2. The Other Wars Shows
You might have seen last year’s Holiday Wars extravaganza, but there’s another reason why this show might seem super familiar to you. Food Network also hosts Halloween Wars. While Holiday Wars tends to be all about peace and goodwill, with more than a few jingle bells, the haunted holiday show is… a little different. A spooky baking show can be cute, but haunted treats can also be a bit on the creepy side, or downright frightening, depending on what the bakers are trying to achieve.
3. There’s So Much Choice To Choose From
If Holiday Wars isn’t your thing, then Food Network has you covered with its large amount of other shows and content for you to check out. In addition to Holiday Wars, Food Network also plays hosts to shows such as Chopped, Diners, Drive-Ins, and Dives, Alex Vs. America, and The Great Food Truck Race. According to Discovery Inc, which own Food Network and numerous other properties, “Food Network is distributed to nearly 100 million U.S. households and draws over 46 million unique web users monthly.” Moreover, the Food Network magazine is the number two bestseller on stands. That means there are a whole lot of people who see Holiday Wars.
4. Hosting the Party
After his very successful run as host of the show, Johnathan Bennett has stepped down as host of Holiday Wars. In addition to his work on Holiday Wars, he has also hosted other shows in the series including Halloween Wars and Cake Wars. The role will now be filled by Jeff Mauro, who is a staple of Food Network content, having appeared on many of its top shows including Sandwich King, The Best Thing I Ever Ate, and Beat Bobby Flay.
5. Ugly Sweater Party
Holiday Wars isn’t just about baking cakes and calling it a day. Instead, the challenges are often themed around different aspects of the holidays while making them unusual and creative. One of the highlights of season 4 was the Ugly Sweater Party, which saw the teams tasked with creating a woodland create that is hosting an Ugly Sweater Party for its friends. It is mind-blowing how stories can be told using cake, but these extraordinary bakers pull it off week after week.
6. The Contestants Are Very Experienced
You don’t get to take part in one of the biggest food competitions without being very experienced in the kitchen. One of season 2’s contestants, Bethany Davis, is very well-versed in the art of baking and owns the bakery, Betnie Bakes. One of the biggest challenges she’s faced in her career was creating a cake with 70 layers, now that is high-pressure baking.
7. The Judges
During its current four-season run, the judges for Holiday Wars have changed fairly frequently, and there’s a new cast in the latest season 4. In addition to his roles in shows such as The Kitchen and Worst Cooks In America, Jeff Mauro now hosts Holiday Wars and he’s doing an excellent job so far. For season 4, Mauro was joined by decorated pastry chef Shinmin Li, who also recently hosted Halloween Wars, and Aarti Sequeira, who is known for being a judge on Guy’s Grocery Games.
8. The Grand Prize
The prize for us viewers is that we get the pleasure of watching amazing treats be created before our eyes, but the contestants also have the motivation to work as hard as possible. In addition to taking home the Holiday Wars championship, the winner also wins an all-expenses trip to the Northern Lights in Iceland. That sounds like a really great prize that would be fantastic to experience in person.
9. The Future Of Holiday Wars
Holiday Wars returned to the Food Network in November 2022 for season 4 and wrapped up the following month. As with previous seasons, the pressure continued to mount as teams were slowly eliminated. It was one of the most gripping seasons so far and it showed that the Food Network still has a winning formula on its hand. So, will there be a Holiday Wars season 5?
As of writing, Food Network has yet to announce that Holiday Wars season 5 will be taking place. But, the show broadcasts in the holiday season, hence the name and theme of the show. If season 5 is going to happen we can expect to receive an official announcement later in the year, but we’re confident that we will see the series continue.
10. Is It Worth Watching?
With there being so many food-based TV shows to choose from it can be difficult to know which one is worth your time. When it comes to Holiday Wars we would see that it is worth checking out. It is only broadcast for a few weeks out of the year and is holiday-themed, which helps it to stand out from the rest of the shows on TV. With it airing in the holidays it can be a great source of inspiration to get ideas for your own treats and you can try and replicate the recipes every week.
