Amy Poehler makes Baking It so much sweeter
Her decades-long chemistry with Maya Rudolph is easily the most delicious part of the Peacock show's second season

Cooking shows and comedy stars: They’re a recipe as reliably delicious as your nanna’s pecan pie. Nailed It! on Netflix has the bubbly bawdiness of stand-up comic Nicole Byer. HBO Max newcomer The Big Brunch features the smirky smarts of Schitt’s Creek star Dan Levy. Community’s Joel McHale pulls double duty as the host of both Fox’s Crime Scene Kitchen and E!’s Celebrity Beef. And, of course, The Great British Bake Off boasts Noel Fielding and Matt Lucas as doofy foils to pastry pros Paul Hollywood and Prue Leith.
However, if The Great British Bake Off has taught us anything recently (other than that it should stay far, far away from Mexican cuisine), it’s that cooking competitions live and die by the likeability of their hosts and how effectively they embody the show’s spirit. So after three seasons of his cringe comedy butting awkwardly against Bake Off’s cozy ethos, it wasn’t a surprise when Lucas recently announced that he was “cheerfully passing the baguette on” to an as-yet-unannounced new co-host.
Thankfully for Peacock and its new season of Baking It—which launched this month and runs through January 9—there are no wrong-ingredient hosts to be found here. If anything, the additive of Amy Poehler—replacing season one co-host and fellow SNL alum Andy Samberg—alongside close friend and frequent collaborator Maya Rudolph (Wine Country, Sisters) simply sweetens the whole mix.
Poehler was already an executive producer on Baking It, the sugar-laden offshoot of the craft competition Making It that she hosted with Parks And Recreation costar Nick Offerman from 2018 to 2021. But now as a host, she’s stirred right into the action, and her decades-long chemistry with Rudolph is easily the most delicious part of the show. If you are one of those people who rejoice every time you see the former costars zanily banter together at an awards-show podium, Baking It is essentially an hour of that: silly voices and sweater vests, sweet absurdities and so, so many songs (a personal favorite: a hippie-folk ballad dedicated to “a lonely mint forgotten in the bottom of the bag,” complete with flower crowns and groovy sunglasses).