Alison Sweeney has been delighting Hallmark audiences with her Hannah Swensen mysteries for about a decade now, and that means quite a few cakes, cookies and other delicacies have been consumed while the baker-turned-detective solves her cases. And yes, when it comes to Reality Bites, the latest Murder, She Baked mystery on the 2025 TV schedule, the actors really are eating the food, as Sweeney told CinemaBlend that she’s got a “firm” rule against fake eating.
With a couple of Loveuary offerings among the upcoming Hallmark movies, loyal viewers of the network’s TV movies were also treated this month to Reality Bites: A Hannah Swensen Mystery. I got to speak to Alison Sweeney ahead of its premiere to ask about all the blueberry deliciousness, and she told me that as a producer she insists the cast actually partake in the food their characters are eating. She said:
I am sort of a hard, old-school, tough producer in that way, though. I am really firm with everybody that you cannot fake eat… I say to people, ‘No, you cannot just eat, like, half a bite of a lettuce leaf. You have to eat. You’re gonna do it. Eat. Take a real bite, and we will figure out how to edit around it.’ I would rather go for it and have to fix it after than do the cheesy not-eating eating thing. And also it’s a show about cookies and baking, right?
It’s true that while Reality Bites contains all the sleuthing you’ve come to expect from the Hallmark Mystery series, as well as a little romance between Hannah and Chad, and even some Monty Python-inspired humor, there is also, of course, plenty of dessert. She’s not wrong about how ridiculous it looks when actors fake-eat (remember the brouhaha over Kim Kardashian fake-eating the Beyond Meat products she was peddling?).
In the movie, which Alison Sweeney also wrote, a TV crew takes over The Cookie Jar to film a show there, and it turns out even the guest stars were made to follow Sweeney’s rule. She spoke about all the planning that goes into tailoring the food to the actors’ requirements as well as making sure the food isn’t an on-camera distraction, saying:
The guest stars are all forewarned. We provide gluten-free stuff if needed or if they have allergies, but we’re like, ‘No, you’re really eating in this scene, and you’re really taking a big bite in every take, and we’ll help you however we can, but that really needs to happen.’ And then I have to talk to the prop department [because] they have to be the right kind of cookies that people can eat. You can’t have snap, crunchy cookies that are loud and weird. A lot of thought goes into this.
I’d have to imagine the cast members are grateful that Alison Sweeney and the crew go to such lengths to keep them safe and comfortable, because after reading about the This Is Us actor who had to keep eating nearly raw meat for a scene, I would imagine that not every set is as accommodating.
If you missed Reality Bites: A Hannah Swensen Mystery when it premiered, no worries! The murder mystery and all of its sweet treats will re-air next at 6 p.m. ET Saturday, February 22, on Hallmark Mystery.
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