To the growing list of TV Trends I Cannot Understand, add this: Shows about cake. First came Food Network’s Ace of Cakes, then TLC’s Cake Boss. Now the latter network breaks the three’s-a-trend threshold by announcing new series Ultimate Cake-Off. 

Maybe it’s because I’m a cook and not a baker, but the human drama of cake decoration is just one of those things that eludes me. Then again, I am out of touch with the tastes of America, as I discovered Saturday, on my birthday, when I insisted on a birthday pie, to the displeasure of the cake-loving Tuned In Jrs. 

Can I get an Ace of Pies? A Pie Boss? Alas, no. I guess Pushing Daisies taught us that pie-making is too narrow an interest to sustain a TV audience. In the meantime, details of TLC’s plan to let America eat cake (again) follow the jump: