My kids are obsessed with “Is It Cake?,” the hit Netflix show where bakers try to fool judges with hyperrealistic baked confections in order to win a cash prize. I’ll often find them running around the house, pretending to cut couches and lamps only to “discover” sweet layer cake underneath.
The show is sweet in more ways than one. The competition is always friendly and supportive, with bakers giving each other tips and encouragement, and host Mikey Day is hammy and empathetic. But watching the latest season of “Is It Cake? Holiday” was a particularly joyful experience for me and my Jewish kids — because it featured a Jewish baker!
Not only did Teaneck-based baker Melissa Alt offer beautiful Jewish representation through her general performance, but she also gifted us a literal Hanukkah cake miracle: Alt, who wore a wonderful Tipsy Elves Hanukkah sweater on the first episode of the season, was the only one to correctly point out that a giant dreidel was, in fact, cake.
Earlier this month I interviewed Alt, a veteran baker with a successful social media account and several previous baking reality TV stints under her belt. During our interview she was parked outside a commercial Kosher kitchen where she’d been making a bar mitzvah cake. The 33-year-old baker, who still lives in the New Jersey city she grew up in, spoke with Kveller about why it was important to her to bring her Jewish pride to the show, and how she first fell in love with baking thanks to her bubbe.
How did you get started with baking? Tell me a little bit about your journey.
My first memory of baking was when my grandmother, my bubbe, used to come visit from Buffalo, New York, and we’d make sugar cookies. She would come for Thanksgiving. We would bake and decorate them; I loved doing it so much. I remember calling her asking for the recipe for the sugar cookies, so I could make them myself. I always credit her with teaching me how to bake.
In junior high, I started doing fashion design… then I started doing painting and drawing. And while I was doing that, I still baked for my friends. I made Duncan Hines cakes that I would decorate as like, SpongeBob or Elmo. So I kind of was making decorated cakes — I just didn’t realize it.
And then I started being inspired by those cake shows on TV, like “Ace of Cakes” with Duff Goldman, or “Cake Boss,” and I just became obsessed and started making cakes all the time, for whoever wanted one, and I never stopped. Even in college — I studied painting and sculpture at Pratt Institute in Brooklyn — but the whole time I was making cakes on the side, or if I could incorporate cakes into a project, that’s what I was doing. Once I graduated, I started my business and here I am.
What was the process like to get on “Is It Cake?”
This was my third time trying out for the show! I definitely got a lot of comments on social media over the years saying, you need to be on “Is It Cake?”, because I make a lot of hyperrealistic cake. It’s always been a show I really wanted to be on. It’s also one of the most well-known cake shows — it just has such a global audience. It’s not just people who like watching cooking shows who watch it, because it’s similar to a game show, and people love that.
Melissa Alt decorating her olive oil and jelly donut flavored cake, wearing a Hanukkah sweater. (via Netflix)
I was really nervous because a lot of previous shows that I’ve done, they’ll have the cake ready. This was the first time I had to bake the cake, and then decorate it all in eight or 10 hours. So I was nervous because I know how to bake, but I always consider myself an artist first.
This isn’t your first reality TV rodeo, right?
I was just on a show with Duff Goldman, “Super Mega Cakes,” that aired in June. In 2021, I was on a Food Network show called “Chocolate Meltdown: Hershey’s After Dark” — I was on one episode. And another show called “Cake Toppers.”
You had a real-life Hanukkah miracle on the show!
What were the odds? I feel like no one else was looking at the dreidel — it was kind of in the back, a little hidden, and it was so big. I feel like everyone just assumed it was not cake. But as I was looking closer at it, I could start seeing brush strokes. And I just immediately was like, “That’s got to be it.” It was crazy no one else chose it. Saved by the dreidel! I was laughing at myself when I was watching it, and I was like, “I’ve spun a lot of dreidels in my life,” which is true.
And you also brought Hanukkah into the first cake that you made.
When I knew I was going to be on “Is It Cake? Holiday,” I really wanted to try and incorporate as much of Hanukkah into it as I could, because that’s really what I’m representing, since I don’t celebrate Christmas. So I was like, how can I get creative with that? And I was like, olive oil cake, jelly donuts… So I put like, jam in my cake, some compote. It was delicious, if I can say so.
What are the Hanukkah traditions you grew up with?
My family always did a big Hanukkah party every year for Hanukkah. So that was an amazing experience because my mom has three siblings — we had a lot of aunts and uncles — and everyone would bring gifts. You would get a pile in the basement with your name, where all your gifts were piled together.
And of course, we always made latkes. Now I always make the croissant donuts. We lit the menorah; in my family I was always in charge of setting up the candles.
This Hanukkah, it’s actually my parents’ 40th anniversary. We’re having a big party at my house, and I am making a cake, but I think it’s going to be our childhood home that we grew up in — that is going to be the cake.
What’s your relationship to Judaism?
I loved growing up Jewish. I’m still best friends with all of my friends from my Jewish high school and elementary school. It was just fun having so much community, going to synagogue every week — everyone knows each other, looks out for each other. I have a lot of Jewish pride and I want to continue teaching that to the future generation when I have kids.
OK, one last important question: Are you team sour cream or apple sauce on your latkes?
Sour cream. No apple sauce! I prefer savory food. I just hate applesauce in general.
