Review: Sweet Genius

Food Network’s newest spin on dessert competitions is called Sweet Genius.  One Food Network fan left a message on the Network’s official Facebook page describing it thusly, “Sweet genius = chopped + iron chef + sugar.”

Here’s the Network’s description, “Competition is sweet but by all means intense as four pastry chefs face off each week in unique dessert challenges. Whoever impresses Ron Ben-Israel — the Sweet Genius himself — takes home $10,000.”

Contestants are given some ingredients that belong in dessert and some that don’t.  That’s a tired gimmick and was never a good one.  The twist is that host Ron Ben-Isreal also gives them an “inspiration” like sand.  That’s different – stupid, but different.

As I have pointed out before I’m not a dessert kind of guy.  My idea of the perfect dessert is a second cheeseburger.  If you are a fan of dessert contests you will probably like it.  In essence dessert contests are all the same with the resulting dishes pretty much tasting the same.  Will it be a hit?  It will do well enough.  Desserts contest fans are cultish in their devotion to the genre.  They love their shows and apparently there are enough of them for networks to keep churning out these cookie cutter programs.  Sorry, had to do it.

I didn’t like it.  At all.  Not even a little.  It was better than Cupcake Wars.  Barely.