ESSENTIALLY, the producers here have managed to make an entire series about a company that bakes cakes.

The Baltimore-based firm, owned by a bloke called Duff, has missed an open goal by naming itself Charm City Cakes, when Duff Cakes was staring them in the face. But then, that’s why Duff runs a successful business and I don’t.

They’re not run of the mill cakes here, though. Oh no. This week we have one being crafted to mark the 50th anniversary of a building (to an American, that’s practically BC) in the shape of, erm, a building, another one designed as a zombie head, one as a baseball stadium and one for the band Clutch in which cake maker Mary Alice’s brother is the singer. They make that particular cake in the shape of an amp, though, on viewing footage of the band, a great pile of rubbish would have been more appropriate.

Top cake bloke Jeff deadpans his way through the programme with the enthusiasm of a dolphin that has just been told it’s going to be rehoused in a desert. “I have a vision for the perfect cake, but I don’t have the time to make it,” he says. Perhaps he just couldn’t reveal his vision on a family programme.

Incredibly, none of the people on here are obese (well, one is), which causes me to believe that a) they don’t like their cakes or b) the job simply puts them off eating them or c) they are not really American at all.

A pirate ship is created for a “pirate wedding”. “I don’t know what to expect from a pirate wedding. Maybe there’ll be people there with patches over one eye,” says cake designer Mary Smith. There’ll be no stopping her on American Mastermind, then.

Then, there’s tension. Will they get the armed forces cake to some presentation in time? It’s close, but they do, and Duff makes a cringeworthy speech, thanking the soldiers for “preserving our way of life”. Yes, thankfully, we can continue to be gun-toting, doughnut-scoffing loudmouths for a while longer.

The fact that people actually get excited about cakes sums up just how banal life is.

And, after all the effort that goes into creating one of these things, someone cuts it in half and it’s eaten within minutes. It takes the biscuit.