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Since appearing on The Great British Bake-Off in 2018, Kim-Joy has made a name for herself in nerd circles with competitive card game Kim-Joy’s Magic Bakery, and her graphic novel, Turtle Bread. As she revealed during an appearance at Emerald City Comic Con 2025, however, she’s always had that geek credibility — and, in fact, that might be what won her a place on Bake-Off in the first place.

“When I auditioned for the Bake-Off, there's multiple stages. And one of the stage you've got to bring in a savory bake and a sweet bake. And my sweet bake that I chose, guess what it was?” she asked the crowd during the Cooks Are In panel at the Seattle show. The answer, it turned out, was a sweet Pikachu from Pokémon — much to the surprise of Kim-Joy’s partner.

“[He] sat there and was like, ‘Oh, why are you doing a Pikachu cake? Nobody's going to know what that is.’ And I was like, ‘What do you mean? It's Pikachu,’” she told the crowd. “That helped me get on the show, I think.”

To be fair, when she described the audition bake, it sounded like something everyone in the audience wanted to eat right there and then.

“What did I do? Little Pokéballs, and I did lightning zaps out of sugar and I did a turtle,” she explained. “It was a chocolate tempered [Pokéball]. And you melt it and it opens up and it has little choux [pastry] turtles inside.”

Well, now I want to learn to bake. Thankfully, Kim-Joy’s got a book to help with that…

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