'Best experience ever': B.C. baker on making it to the finals of Netflix's 'Is it Cake?'

When Jujhar Mann said he wanted to be a pastry chef on a grade school career project, he didn't imagine that pursuing his dream would land him on a popular Netflix baking competition.

"I thought that never would become a reality," Mann told CTV Morning Live Wednesday. "Everything is just going amazing."

Not only is Mann now professionally trained as a baker, but he has his own shop in Surrey, B.C., and was a finalist in the latest season of Netflix's Is It Cake?

The show challenges bakers to make edible recreations of everyday objects that are realistic enough to trick a panel of judges. On the show, the baker's cake is lined up – at a distance – among other similar-looking objects. The judges then have 20 seconds to choose which of the items before them is the cake.

"It was the best experience ever. It was super intense," Mann said. "We didn't have a lot of time to make these hyper-realistic cakes, but I had the best time ever."

Mann explained bakers were required to do a lot of quick thinking and were given eight hours to create their culinary masterpiece.

Mann made it to the finals, where he impressed the judges with a peacock cake. While he did not fool the panel, his bake was described as "astonishing."

"I've been obsessed with baking shows since I was a kid. So my love for baking began from there," Mann said Wednesday. "You can create something so beautiful and so delicious just with your hands and I just find it so much fun."

Mann, who specializes in custom cakes and French pastries, said he loves to combine his cultures in his baking to produce unique flavours like mango cardamom entremets or rose kulfi opera cakes.

Mann said he's received a lot of public support from customers at his bakery – which he opened in 2022 – after the season came out on Netflix.

"I'm so surprised. The community has always been so supportive, but it's just been so amazing having, you know, little kids come and parents coming saying, 'you inspired my son or daughter to become a baker,'" he said. "The response has been so incredible and I'm so grateful."

With files from CTV News Vancouver's Keri Adams