Welcome to “For the Record,” where Netflix stars set the record straight on the craziest rumors they’ve heard about themselves. Here, Is It Cake? contestant Jonny Manganello cuts the tension surrounding criticism about his performance. 

At its core, Is It Cake? is really all about deceit. The object of the baking competition game show is to bamboozle a panel of judges with creative baking and sculpting techniques and, of course, lots and lots of fondant. Though there’s a lot of trickery built into the show’s concept, the competition isn’t a total free-for-all. Quite the opposite, in fact. The show’s contestants have to play by a very specific set of rules.

According to Jonny Manganello, an Is It Cake? contestant and hyperrealistic-cake baker known as @​​thejonnycakes on TikTok, when production for Season 1 of the series began, each competitor was given a comprehensive packet that explained how the game worked and all the rules. It was even broken down by each individual challenge. The bakers also had to attend meetings about those rules behind the scenes. “Nothing on this show is done without the amazing team of people behind the scenes who are not only there to create a good show, but also to create the most fair show,” Manganello tells Tudum. “There’s a whole legal aspect to this show that people at home don’t see, and we all had to follow all of the rules.”

But some viewers still concluded that rules were broken. Many believe Manganello isn’t playing fairly in Episode 1 because he adds squares of deep-red gelatin that mimic the look of tomatoes to his decoy tacos in order to throw the judges off and make them believe the real tacos were actually cake. Was the move sneaky? Yes. But was it against the rules? Manganello says no. 

The baker says he verified that he wasn’t breaking any rules with the gelatin addition multiple times. “Since this episode was a fast-food challenge, I checked with culinary and rules and asked if it was OK to mess with my decoy with food, and they said ‘Absolutely,’ ” Manganello explains. “Not only that, but after that episode wrapped filming, the whole cast had a rules meeting about other stuff where I confirmed with the culinary people, and it was a non-issue.” 

Though it might be hard to spot, Manganello says he also wasn’t the only baker that was smart enough to mess with their decoys. “Many, if not all, of the other bakers manipulated decoys on the show. It isn’t really discussed much, but you can see it in tons of different episodes.” Other contestants glued items to their decoys and used oil and vegetable shortening in order to make them look more like cake. Strategically selecting which decoys to use and how they’re used was actually a key part of this cunning competition.

With that in mind, Manganello says there weren’t any hard feelings from his competitors when he fooled the judges with his tacos. “Hemu, who I competed against in this episode, and I had a long, great chat on the phone yesterday and she said, ‘I need you to not even give this a second thought. You’re totally fine. Nobody who knows how the show works is mad at you,’ ” he shares. “I also talked with Sam about it and she’s totally cool too.” As for those calling out “Tomatogate” online, Manganello gets it. “I don’t blame them for coming to various conclusions because they don’t have that book of rules. They’re just watching a television show.”