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Pokémon's Pikachu helped Kim-Joy be the very best when auditioning for The Great British Bake-Off

Pokeballs filled with choux turtles will be your new favorite thing very soon

Published on Tue Apr 08 2025

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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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Graeme McMillan: Popverse Editor Graeme McMillan (he/him) has been writing about comics, culture, and comics culture on the internet for close to two decades at this point, which is terrifying to admit. He completely understands if you have problems understanding his accent.