‘Harry Potter’ Best Spin-Off Series Is Officially a Streaming Hit Before HBO’s Reboot

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Published Nov 12, 2026, 12:02 PM EST

Lily Elizabeth is a Reality TV Features writer for Collider. She started at Collider last year and has been covering all types of reality television since. Her interest in reality television was sparked in high school by Big Brother and has continued into adulthood. In her free time, you can find her with a glass of iced tea and her cat Tabitha by her side. She is always reading, writing, or, of course, watching reality television.

Fifteen years after the final Harry Potter movie, and just over a month before HBO's reboot arrives on December 25, the world still has room for more magic. Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking has become a fan-favorite addition to the Wizarding World of Harry Potter, bringing the beloved franchise back to screens with a baking competition on Food Network.

The show is graced with guest judges who are actors and actresses from the movie franchise that any fan will recognize immediately. The beloved story is a draw for the audience and the bakers, who all take great care in producing the most spectacular pieces of art out of pastries and candy. It is clear how much thought each baker puts into their creations and the flavors they bring to the table. Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking is a charming show that has brought magic to Food Network in a way that fans will surely enjoy.

Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking focuses on baking while weaving in the Harry Potter franchise audiences know and love. The show is hosted by not one, but two actors from the Harry Potter films, James Phelps and Oliver Phelps, who play the Weasley twins in all eight movies. The first season introduces nine teams, sent through the fireplace via the flue network, who are paired together based on their shared love for one specific part of Harry Potter. The teams get to work immediately with their first task: a two-foot-tall sculpture of a scene or set piece from the film. Ultimately, only six teams got on the Hogwarts Express and advanced to the next episode.

‘Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking’ Has Everything Fans Want

Even with baking being such a large part of the show, it is centered around the Wizarding World. James and Oliver Phelps do a marvelous job of hosting with funny quips and references. Notably, the Phelps twins are not judging the competition but get the chance to snack on the treats being made, even being given an entire tray of leftover mango caramel. In Season 1, Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking was judged by Carla Hall, a Food Network regular, and Jozef Youssef, an award-winning chef. Joining the pair of highly acclaimed chefs are celebrity cameos such as Bonnie Wright, Evanna Lynch, and Warwick Davis – who play Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood, and Professor Flitwick, respectively.

Collider Exclusive · 8 Questions · 2 Minutes What Fantasy World Do You Belong To? Middle-earth · Grand Line · The Continent · Camp Half-Blood

Pick your magic, your crew, where you want to wake up and who you would rather be fighting, and we will tell you which world you actually belong in. Four are open to you: an ancient kingdom living through its last good age, an endless sea full of pirates, a continent that pays people to kill monsters, and a summer camp where the Greek gods are extremely real and mostly a nuisance.

💍Middle-earth(Rings of Power)

👒Grand Line(One Piece)

🐺The Continent(The Witcher)

🔱Camp Half-Blood(Percy Jackson)

FIND YOUR WORLD →

What kind of power do you want? Every one of these worlds runs on a completely different sort of magic.

ASomething ancient and half forgotten that came down through my family. BSomething completely ridiculous that works in a fight and gets a laugh. CNo magic at all, just training, potions and a very sharp sword. DSomething I inherited from a parent I have barely met.

NEXT QUESTION →

Who is travelling with you? Nobody gets through any of these stories entirely on their own.

AA fellowship drawn from every corner of the world who barely trust each other. BA crew I picked up one at a time, all of whom would die for me. CTwo or three people I would never describe out loud as friends. DTwo mates from school who are exactly as out of their depth as I am.

NEXT QUESTION →

Where do you want to wake up tomorrow? The best fantasy is usually just somewhere you would genuinely like to live.

AA high city of white stone with the sea somewhere far below. BA ship under sail, with an island ahead that nobody has mapped. CA rented room over a tavern, in a town I am leaving in the morning. DA cabin at a summer camp with everybody else already awake outside.

NEXT QUESTION →

How are you making a living out there? Even in fantasy somebody has to pay for the horse.

AI am not, because somebody far older than me decided this was my duty. BTreasure, and I am not always careful about whose it used to be. CI take contracts, since people will pay well for what they will not touch. DI am fifteen and this is all technically a school trip.

NEXT QUESTION →

There is something in the woods. What do you do about it? All four of these worlds keep something unpleasant out there in the dark.

ASend word to somebody who has seen this before, then hold the line. BWalk straight in, because it is interesting and possibly edible. CAsk what it has been eating and what the village is willing to pay. DWork out which myth it escaped from, then improvise very badly.

NEXT QUESTION →

Who is the villain of your story? The enemy tells you far more about a world than the hero ever does.

AAn ancient evil that has been patient for several thousand years. BA government that has spent a long time calling itself the good guys. CA man who turns out to be far worse than anything I hunt for money. DA god, or possibly my own family, and quite likely both at once.

NEXT QUESTION →

What do you actually believe in out there? Every world hands its heroes one rule and asks them to hold onto it.

ASome things are worth defending even when the odds are hopeless. BNobody gets to tell me where I can go or what I am allowed to want. CPick the lesser evil, and never pretend afterwards that it was not evil. DMy friends come before anything a prophecy has to say about it.

NEXT QUESTION →

A thousand years from now, how are you remembered? Eight questions in, this is the one that decides your world.

AIn a song, in a language hardly anybody still speaks. BAs the one who got there first and proved the whole thing was possible. CBarely, and mostly wrongly, in ballads I would absolutely hate. DOn a plaque at a camp, read by kids about to do the same thing.

REVEAL MY WORLD →

The Map Is Drawn Your World Is…

Four worlds and four completely different ideas of what a good life looks like. This is where you belong, what it would ask of you, and what you would get back in return.

Middle-earth

You belong somewhere old enough that the mountains have names and somebody can still tell you who gave them. Middle-earth is for people who think the right thing is worth doing even when it will not be finished in their lifetime.

This is the only world on the list where doing good is understood as a very long defeat, fought anyway, by people who will never see how it ends.
You are drawn to grandeur, to white cities and deep forges and the sense that almost everything you touch is older than your entire family line.
The Rings of Power is set in the last good age before it all goes wrong, which gives every quiet scene in it a slightly unbearable weight.
You would take the hard road, and you would take it on foot.

The Grand Line

You want the sea, a crew, and absolutely nobody telling you where you are allowed to go. The Grand Line is the world for people whose main ambition in life is finding out what is over there.

One Piece has run for decades on one very simple engine, which is a group of people who each want something impossible and have decided to go and get it together.
You collect people. Your ideal crew is a set of misfits who were each written off somewhere else before you turned up and offered them a better idea.
The world is enormous and deliberately ridiculous, and the emotional gut punches land harder because of that rather than in spite of it.
You would set sail knowing the map runs out, which is more or less the entire point of it.

The Continent

You would rather be feared and useful than liked and useless. The Continent is a world where the monsters are the straightforward part of the job and the people are where it all gets complicated.

Witchers get paid to do what nobody else will and resented for existing at all, which is a trade most people would refuse and you would probably accept.
You have no real illusions about which side is the good one, largely because on the Continent that question tends to have a disappointing answer.
The best of these stories are not about the fighting. They are about somebody with a rigid code being repeatedly cornered into caring about people.
You would take the coin, finish the job properly, and be out of town before the story got told wrong.

Camp Half-Blood

You want the myths to be real and loose in the actual world, and you want to find out at about thirteen that you were never anywhere near as ordinary as everybody kept telling you.

Percy Jackson takes the oldest stories we have and drops them into car parks and diners, which makes the gods considerably funnier and a great deal worse.
You would be the kid every school gave up on, who turns out to have been built for something nobody thought to test for.
The series is genuinely about friendship rather than destiny, and it says so out loud every time a prophecy tries to get in the way.
Camp Half-Blood is the real fantasy here: a place where the thing that made you difficult everywhere else is the thing that makes you belong.

↻ RETAKE THE QUIZ

The guest stars are not the only thing Harry Potter fans can expect from Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking. There are references to the Harry Potter films everywhere. Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking is shot at Warner Bros. Studios and has pieces from the film, from the Hogwarts Express to a portrait of the Fat Lady that hangs over the fireplace. With clips of the films cut in between each reference to remind the audience of what some scenes looked like, and each challenge being something wonderful and beloved from the film, there is no forgetting that Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking is for the fans.

The series is now in its third season, which premiered November 4 with a Hogwarts House tournament and new judges Duff Goldman and Sarah Mountain. Per FlixPatrol for the Week of November 9, Wizards of Baking ranked No. 5 on HBO Max's U.S. Top 10 TV Shows chart, giving fans another way to revisit the Wizarding World before the December reboot.

The Contestants Create Detailed Desserts Based on ‘Harry Potter’

From the beginning, it is clear that this is a baking show, so although knowledge and love of the Harry Potter franchise are massive benefits to the bakers, the taste and creativity will move them further in the competition. The nine baking teams get to show off their knowledge of Harry Potter and baking skills with themed challenges. Moving parts are in many of the pieces, including lights, chocolate fountains, spiders on tracks, and messages hidden in clear candy.

Each team can show off two tasting portions, one for each baker (several of whom appeared on Is It Cake? on Netflix). The teams fight to keep their spot in the competition and learn to work with each other in the kitchen. The show's charm is the baking and the teams' apparent care when creating each piece.

The magic and beauty of Hogwarts have come to Food Network with Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking, and it does not disappoint. Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking is delightful, with James and Oliver Phelps flourishing as hosts and joined by their co-stars. The baking is also spectacular, and it is evident from the intricacies and detail how much care goes into crafting each confection. Incorporating one of the most beloved franchises with a cooking competition was an excellent move for Food Network and has produced a fun and charming show that any fan will love. If food and fandom are what you're looking for, Harry Potter: Wizards of Baking takes the cake.