John Mayer Launches Holiday Baking Competition; ‘Grey’s Anatomy’ Stars Celebrate Season With Bake Off

John Mayer is getting in the holiday spirit again, having launched his second annual Interfaith Holiday Baking Competition.

Last year, the singing superstar filled his blog with photos of some of the most outrageous and just plain yummy-looking holiday-themed cakes of 2008 and he’s brought the tradition back for 2009. And the rocker revealed earlier this month that the tradition was inspired by his brother.

“About this time last year I started getting e-mails from my brother with pictures of cakes he’d been baking. I laughed at first but when he appealed to me without sarcasm that it was undeniably fun and uplifting, I had to try it,” John wrote on his blog. “Sure enough, baking a cake or two while listening to Christmas (okay, Holiday) music was like a giant dose of premium cheer. I had the happiest holidays in years.

“I decided to start a contest on my blog wherein I challenged readers to submit their own baked goods, and the cheer just kept spreading. What I had originally thought was a clever little contest actually turned into a mainline of good feelings for everyone involved,” he added.

The second Interfaith Holiday Baking Competition kicked off earlier this month, and on Wednesday night, John post the first round of cake contenders. Some of the cakes John posted pictures of (which you can see HERE) featured the “Grinch Who Stole Christmas,” a Twitter bird, The Beatles logo surrounded by holiday lights and a Christmas theme featuring a mantle-hung stocking for Kanye, who John recently told Access Hollywood deserved a break following his Taylor Swift MTV Video Music Awards stage interruption.

The rocker plans to post more cake pics over the holidays and the winner will get four tickets (including meet and greet) to any show on the rocker’s upcoming American trek and a Martin OMJM Signature Series acoustic guitar. Second place walks away with a Fender JM Stratocaster.

But John isn’t the only star having a holiday goodies bake.

The casts of “Grey’s Anatomy” and “Private Practice” gathered together for a Bake-Off, series creator Shonda Rhimes Twittered on Thursday.

Kevin McKidd (Dr. Owen “McArmy” Hunt), Justin Chambers (Alex Karev) and Jessica Capshaw (Dr. Arizona Robbins) judged the competition, which saw Shonda make peanut butter-chocolate chip cookies.

“I celebrate the fact that I found time to compete at all since I had to get up at 5 am to do so,” she wrote.

But although she created two hit shows, it appears her cooking creations didn’t manage to win over the illustrious judging panel.

“The BakeOff has ended. I remain without the coveted BakeOff trophy. Alas, this was not my year. But much fun was had by all,” she wrote noting that “Grey’s” script coordinator Darren Preston took the trophy for chocolate drizzled wine wafers.