Kriti Mehrotra
Revolving around nine bakers as they create drastically different hyper-realistic cakes while competing against one another, Netflix’s ‘Is It Cake?’ is a cookery series unlike any other. After all, every participant here is a true professional, and the aim of the game is for them to fool the rotating roster of celebrity judges to win thousands per round, plus a $50,000 grand prize in the end. Amongst them was Jonny Manganello, who brought both his skills as well as his humorous personality to the table — so now, let’s find out everything there’s to know about him, shall we?
Who is Jonny Manganello?
Jonny Manganello is a self-taught baker and cake artist who has had an affinity for the creative outlet since he was a little kid, yet he only started seriously baking about four years ago. Therefore, once the pandemic hit, the Grosse Pointe, Michigan native dedicated all his time to the kitchen, working hard to not only develop his craft but also build a lasting business. It actually doesn’t look like he was ever afraid to jump into this profession, though, and it could be because he grew up in a massive Lebanese family full of artists and comics, something he knew he inherited.
“What I do is the weirdest thing in the world,” Jonny candidly stated in the Netflix original. “Like, there are people saving lives, and I am making cake look like other things!” And while it is true, the absolute fact of the matter is that he does it exceptionally well, which is why he’s considered one of the best in his field despite still being a relative newcomer. This much is evidenced in the competition series by him winning in the first episode as well as Andrew Fuller asking him to be his baking assistant in the finale. The happenchance Jonny got to showcase his wit was just a massive plus for him.
Where is Jonny Manganello Now?
From what we can tell, Jonny Manganello, who even participated in Food Network’s ‘Holiday Wars’ (season 2) back in 2020, continues to work as a cake artist and content creator at his partial bakery, Jonny Cakes. We say “partial” because that’s what the West Hollywood, California resident bills it as since he doesn’t sell a bunch of his creations every day— it’s a few each week. After all, he specializes in individual, customized sculpted projects that take around 8-20 hours to complete (which he also films and then puts on the internet), so he doesn’t really have time to do anything else.
“Definitely half of what I do is stupidity,” Jonny recently said in an ABC interview. “I just find like the stupidest thing to turn into cake, and then I do it,” whether it be a plunger, a McDonald’s happy meal, Mike Wazowski, a watermelon, the ‘Hocus Pocus’ book of spells, or quite literally a baby. Moreover, even though he’s incredibly close to his family and visits them whenever possible, it seems like he’s still searching for his special someone, i.e., he’s still “painfully single.”
“I love the idea of sharing food with people, and [my work now] is doing that on a national or maybe even international level,” Jonny told the Detroit Free Press. “It’s crazy that these weird things I think up in my brain can be seen across the country. That’s really cool.”
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