It’s a Net gain! Sandra Lee tells Page Six she gained 10lbs in a month while judging a baking competition for Netflix.
The veteran food broadcaster is fronting the new show, “Blue Ribbon Baking Championship” — in which champion bakers from state fairs across the US “face off for the first time in an epic baking showdown to win top honors and $100,000” — with actor and legendary pie penetrator, Jason Biggs.
It’s their job to sample the goods and pick the hottest bakers. And they took it seriously — at least if Lee’s bathroom scale is anything to go by.
“We had to eat everything we had to taste,” Lee tells Page Six, “Absolutely everything — it was four weeks of a sugar high. And it’s not just tasting the dessert. You also have to break it down and taste the cakes separately or the crust separately, different from the filling or from the icing. And sometimes you have to eat more than one portion. I easily gained 10 lbs.”
“But honestly, the desserts were so good. It was a pleasure to eat. It’s a well-earned 10 pounds,” she added, “Every precious mouthful, those desserts. Reminds you that life is not worth living without sweet sweet things, and these desserts were unbelievable. These are the best bakers in the world doing amazing American desserts. When you watch the show, you will learn a lot, but you will also see riveting television and epic disasters.”
Promo shots show one creation that appears to be a classic canoli — but with the pastry tube replaced with coiled up bacon. So we’re talking calorie counts not suitable for amateurs.
Lee — who became a household name with her cooking show “Semi-Homemade Cooking,” which ran on the Food Network from 2003 until 2011 — is herself a veteran of the state fair competition scene.
The former First Lady of New York State recently told Salon that the blue ribbon she won for “display and design” 32 years ago at the Los Angeles County Fair is one of her prized possessions and that she still has it proudly on display in her home.
