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Every Holiday Baking Show On TV In 2026, And When Each One Starts

Updated October 19, 2026. We’ll add dates here as the networks announce them.

A tall stack of golden peppermint shortbread cookies, each streaked with dark melted mint chocolate, on a black-and-white plaid kitchen towel.
Not from any of the shows: our Peppermint Drizzle Cookies.

Food Network opens the holiday baking season on Monday, November 2, with the Season 13 premiere of Holiday Baking Championship, and the next three weeks are crowded. Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking follows on November 4, Sweet Deceit’s holiday episodes on November 16, Gordon Ramsay’s Next Level Baker on FOX on November 19, and a two-hour Pillsbury Bake-Off special on CBS on November 23, Thanksgiving week. The Great British Baking Show is already mid-season on Netflix.

Here is every date the networks have published, in one place.

StartsShowWhereTime
Now (Fridays since Sept. 25)The Great British Baking Show, Collection 14NetflixNew episode each Friday
Mon., Nov. 2Holiday Baking Championship, Season 13Food Network8 p.m. ET/PT
Wed., Nov. 4Harry Potter: Wizards of BakingFood Network8 p.m. ET/PT
Mon., Nov. 16Sweet Deceit (holiday episodes)Food Network9 p.m. ET/PT
Thu., Nov. 19Next Level Baker, Season 2FOX9 p.m. ET, 8 p.m. CT
Mon., Nov. 23Pillsbury Bake-Off ClassicCBS and Paramount+ (Premium)8 to 10 p.m. ET/PT

The Great British Baking Show (Netflix, Fridays)

Paul Hollywood, smiling in a black shirt with a headset microphone, holds an orange and a zester over mixing bowls during a cooking demonstration.
Paul Hollywood at the Stratford Food Festival in 2013. Photo: Mosaic Marketing via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

Collection 14 premiered on Netflix on September 25 and adds an episode every Friday until the finale, according to Netflix. It’s a 10-week competition with 12 bakers, and the judging table has changed: Prue Leith stepped down after nine seasons, and Nigella Lawson now judges alongside Paul Hollywood. Noel Fielding and Alison Hammond host.

In the UK the series airs first, on Channel 4 on Tuesdays, so each episode reaches US viewers three days later. Episode two, Biscuit Week, opened with the bakers making American-style cookies, Channel 4’s listing says. If that sends you to the kitchen, our chocolate chip cookies are a brown-sugar version of that American classic (our recipe, not the show’s).

Holiday Baking Championship, Season 13 (Food Network, Nov. 2)

Duff Goldman, in a gray Red Sox cap and a Ravens jersey, laughs while speaking into a microphone on a panel.
Duff Goldman at VidCon in 2012. Photo: Gage Skidmore via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0 (cropped).

Season 13 premieres Monday, November 2, at 8 p.m. ET/PT, and Molly Yeh is at the judges’ table alongside Duff Goldman and Kardea Brown. Host Jesse Palmer welcomes twelve bakers to “Santa’s Village,” Food Network’s North Pole setting for this season. The bakers start in two teams, the Elf Squad and the Reindeer Crew, before the teams dissolve and it becomes every baker for themselves. The champion wins $25,000.

Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking (Food Network, Nov. 4)

This season is a tournament of four teams of three, one for each Hogwarts House, all made up of returning competitors who have never won. James and Oliver Phelps, the films’ Fred and George Weasley, host, with Duff Goldman and pastry chef Sarah Mountain judging. The winning House takes the trophy and a VIP trip to the Harry Potter studio tour in Tokyo. It’s a cake-and-showpiece show more than a cookie one.

Sweet Deceit (Food Network, Nov. 16)

The holiday episodes of Josh Peck’s game show send teams of three hunting for hyper-realistic sweets hidden in holiday sets, among them a cabin, an ice rink and Santa’s workshop. Teams prove a guess by biting it, across four rounds, for up to $12,000.

Next Level Baker (FOX, Nov. 19)

Carla Hall, in profile with silver curls, light blue glasses and studio headphones, during a recording session.
Carla Hall at the Library of Congress in August 2026. Photo: Shawn Miller / Library of Congress via Wikimedia Commons, public domain (CC0).

Gordon Ramsay’s Next Level Baker returns on Thursday, November 19, for its second season, and FOX has already renewed it for a third. Carla Hall is back as a mentor, and award-winning pastry chef and author Waylynn Lucas joins her, FOX said in May. The season opens with a team reveal in which each mentor picks a Home, a Pro and a Social baker, and it builds to what FOX calls “the legendary three-tier cake challenge.”

Pillsbury Bake-Off Classic (CBS, Nov. 23)

Drew Barrymore, with long wavy blonde hair and a gold heart necklace, smiles on a red carpet.
Drew Barrymore in Berlin in 2014. Photo: Glyn Lowe via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 2.0.

This is the one for cookie bakers. Drew Barrymore hosts a two-hour special in which home bakers compete across five rounds, “from cookies for a cookie exchange to Thanksgiving pies,” CBS said. General Mills says it brings the Bake-Off back to primetime after more than 20 years. Christina Tosi and Dook Chase judge, and the winner of a “Best in Bake” finale of edible holiday wreaths takes $25,000 and a KitchenAid equipment package. We covered the special in full in what the Pillsbury Bake-Off home bakers will make.

Planning your own exchange tray? Our Peppermint Drizzle Cookies are a peppermint shortbread finished with melted Andes mints.

Not On The Calendar Yet

  • Christmas Cookie Challenge. Food Network’s cookie competition is not in its 2026 holiday announcement, and its newest press release on Warner Bros. Discovery’s press site is from September 2024. No 2026 season has been announced.
  • The Great British Bake Off final and festive specials. Channel 4 hasn’t dated either yet.
  • The Great American Baking Show. Roku hasn’t announced a 2026 holiday edition, and its newsroom has no release about the show.

We’ll update this calendar as each of these is announced.

Featured image: Paul Hollywood and Mary Berry on stage at Cake International London in 2013. Photo: Rinkydinkpanther via Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0 (cropped).

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