Discovery+ Isn't Just True Crime and House Flipping — Sometimes It's Cake

In Investigating Discovery+, Primetimer staffers and contributors comb through the Discovery+ catalog to identify hidden gems and take a closer look at breakout series.

At first glance, there are two genres that seem to dominate the Discovery+ library: true crime and home renovation. Deep dives into salacious stories under the ID banner, like The Curious Case of Natalia Grace, gain attention from social media chatter, and HGTV series like House Hunters, Home Town, and Property Brothers are household names (pun not intended). But there’s much more to the relatively new streamer than talking head interviews with detectives and way too much shiplap.

Along with offering favorites from networks like TLC, The Food Network, and Lifetime, Discovery+ also produces its own original programming that reflects all of the many genres it offers. And, like many of its streaming counterparts, that includes a range of educational content and complete junk food TV. One of the silliest among the latter? Stab That Cake!

The hybrid baking competition series capitalizes on the same internet meme that inspired Netflix’s Is It Cake? Bakers are tasked with making hyper-realistic cakes that could easily be confused for the real thing, and part of the fun is cutting into what appears to be a real object only to reveal layers of cake and frosting. But where Is It Cake? entrusts host Mikey Day with all the knifework, Stab That Cake! brings on another set of non-baking contestants to do the titular stabbing.

Bakers hide their incredibly realistic creations among everyday objects on grocery store shelves — a lemon cake must sit with other lemons in the produce section, a set of sponges needs to be on a shelf with other sponges in the cleaning supply aisle, etc. — before two teams are let loose in the store with two minutes to stab up to four things that they suspect to be cake. If a baker’s item is discovered, they are eliminated. The stabber who discovers the cake gets $300 for each cake found in Round 1, and $500 in Round 2.

It’s pure mayhem as contestants run through the store wielding knives that certainly don’t need to be that big or that sharp, no matter how much extra drama the sense of danger adds. They stab real salads and tubs of guacamole and loaves of bread during their hunt for cake as the anxious bakers watch. The taste of the cake, which the bakers carefully consider, is of little consequence in the end. All that matters is stabbing.

So far, Stab That Cake! comprises only three episodes (each clocking in around 42 minutes), and that’s really all it needs to make you question if everything around you is real or cake, making trips to the grocery store more confusing than ever. But when in doubt, a simple taste test will do — leave the stabbing for the professionals on TV.

Stab That Cake! is streaming on Discovery+ and Max.

Brianna Wellen is a TV Reporter at Primetimer who became obsessed with television when her parents let her stay up late to watch E.R.