The Great Australian Bake Off has one tough cookie of a judge in Kerry Vincent

As some of you may know,a good friend of this blog is Kerry Vincent,one of my favorite culinary judges best known for her firm yet fair assessments on shows such as Food Network Challenge and Last Cake Standing.

 Some call her the Simon Cowell of cakes but I prefer to refer to her as  Professor McGonagall(due to her striking resemblance to Maggie Smith,in my opinion).

 It's been awhile since Kerry has been on TV,the last time I recall seeing her was on HGTV's The White Room Challenge where she judged a living space created with chefs in mind. However, she will be back on the air this weekend but,alas not in the States. Kerry will be sharing her sugary charms back in her homeland of Australia as one of the judges of The Great Australian Bake-Off:

  This pastry showdown is part of an international series of cooking competition shows that started with The Great British Bake Off in 2010.

A group of ten home chefs go through a set of timed events in order to win the honor of being the top baker in the land,as well as winning a kitchen makeover and a luxury vacation. With the British Bake-Off being in it's third season,hopes are high that the Australian version will be just as sweetly successful:

The US version of this series will be debuting in late May under the title The American Baking Competition(don't know why they didn't go with the obvious Great American Bake-Off,unless that name was already taken).

 Sadly,Kerry will not be on that show,which has Jeff Foxworthy as the host with Marcela Valladolid and Paul Hollywood as the judges. Marcela has a FN show,Mexican Made Easy and Paul is one of the original judges on The Great British Bake-Off,so some continuity there but it would be nice if Kerry could join in the mix at some point. Adding her insights seems easy as apple pie to me:

Kerry will be sharing her judging duties on The Great Australian Bake-Off with Dan Lepard,another Aussie whose work is well known abroad with several cook books and the culinary correspondent for such UK newspapers as The Guardian and the Observer.

 Between the two of them,this show should be quite the slice of  competitive cake indeed. My only regret is that I won't be able to see Kerry in action here,but I wouldn't begrudge her fellow country men and women from benefiting from her vast array of knowledge and style.

 The Great Australian Bake-Off will be starting for overseas viewers next month and I wish the competitors the very best of luck. Good to see Kerry back on TV doing one of the things she does best in the baking world and next time,may she be stateside: