Duff Goldman has a new co-host on Kids Baking Championship, but this season wasn’t totally sweet thanks to some furry friends.
The Food Network star was joined by fellow celebrity chef Kardea Brown for the latest season of the youthful competition series, which is airing new episodes every Monday night on Food Network. This season, Kids Baking Championship: Amazing Animals follows 12 juvenile bakers tasked with animal-inspired challenges over 10 episodes. Plus, the animal theme extended beyond bakes as real furry, feathered and finned guests joined them in the kitchen.
“Every day you’re like, cakes and cookies, yummy things, and then all of a sudden, here’s a llama, or here’s a pony,” the pastry chef told PEOPLE during the 2025 South Beach Wine & Food Festival (SOBEWFF), which ran from Feb. 20-23. While Goldman found the animals “funny,” he recalled Brown feeling differently.
“The challenging part is helping Kardea get over her fear of some animals. I think she was terrified of the chickens,” the father of one laughed. “She’s going to be so mad.”
PEOPLE spoke to the Delicious Miss Brown star earlier this year about her first season of hosting Kids Baking Championship. She dished on the sweet times with the kids, the learning moments with Goldman and the scary instances with animals — like a “sort of panic attack” she had while holding a cockatoo named Chicken.
While the animal interactions weren’t the smoothest for Brown, both she and Goldman agreed that her dynamic with the contestants were that of a seasoned host. “Man, Kardea is great,” he explained of the former teacher and social worker.
He continued, “She really is truly just an empathetic person, and I think the kids can really sense that she is as real as it gets and is safe and lovely and wonderful, and she’s got a really amazing sort of point of view on pastry, which is totally different than mine. And so it’s really nice having conversations with her because we come from such complete different places.”
When asked about working with Goldman, Brown called him a “great teacher” and “great friend.” “Gosh, he’s been champion of mine, and I really do appreciate him,” she said in January.
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Brown and Goldman have shared the stage several times for Kids Baking Championship specials and other baking shows, like Spring Baking Championship, but season 13, airing now, was their first time co-starring on the Emmy-nominated series.
The Way Home author took over for Valerie Bertinelli — who had previously hosted the series with Goldman since it premiered in 2015 — for season 13 of the show.
New episodes of Kids Baking Championship: Amazing Animals air Mondays at 8 p.m. ET on Food Network.
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