Part culinary competition, part guessing game, can contestants really figure out what’s been baked solely by evaluating a smattering of ingredients and clues?

This is the premise of Crime Scene Kitchen which has bakers from around the country using their sleuthing skills to decode a recipe and then recreate it for judges to consume.

Hosted by comedian Joel McHale, with chef Curtis Stone and cake artist Yolanda Gampp serving as judges, the series challenges participants to use both their problem-solving skills and their baking acumen to win prizes.

McHale recalls pitching the show to Rob Wade, President, Alternative Entertainment & Specials, FOX Entertainment, saying, “I'd be, like, ‘It's an actual crime scene; someone has died, and there are baking clues,’ and then, Rob would go ‘Maybe, we don't have an actual dead body in there,’ and then, I would be, like, ‘Okay, it gets removed, but it will still be outlined [on the ground],’ and he's like, ‘Maybe, just the clues from the cakes?’ And then, I would be, like, ‘Fine.’

He jokes that, “As far as my culinary skills go, I have taught Curtis and Yolanda a lot over the last month and a half. They, finally, are not going to mess up a lot of the recipes that they consistently get wrong.”

With a slight shift in tone, he adds, “But seriously, I do cook a lot. I cook a lot of meat and a lot of fish, but the world of baking is so complicated and incredible. It's, like, magic; it's like science.”  

For his role, he says, “I'm there to tell jokes, and to comment, and be an every‑man, as I try these cakes and desserts.”

Stone explains why the actual recreation process is so difficult, saying, “The interesting thing about baking is you start with one thing, and then you can go in a lot of different directions. It's actually a lot of fun to watch [the bakers] try and figure it out because, sometimes, they're just an inch away from success, but they're going to end up doing something totally different.”

He says that given this the judging criteria to determine the winning baker is done by evaluating who got closest to what was baked in the crime scene kitchen and by assessing the flavor and presentation of the end result as well.  “So, they've got to get the whole package,” says Stone.

The contestants are a mix of professionally trained bakers and people who are self-taught, says Executive Producer Allison Grodner, but because of the team nature of the series, the producers also wanted people to work with someone that they had a relationship with. “We have mothers and daughters, we have mothers and sons, we have best friends [who] met in culinary school. They're all very interesting relationships.”

McHale quickly adds, “Yeah. Hold on to your hat because you're going to see some great personalities.”  

The contestants include pie makers from Missouri, high‑end chefs from Vegas, and everything in between, including home cooks. 

As for the detective part, McHale reveals, “You're going to be blown away by how close people get to guessing what they find. And then, you'll be blown away by some of the absolute wrong turns that people take.”

He says that the final episode is, “truly dramatic, and really fun.”

With all of the baking going on around him while he worked on the series, McHale admits that he had a bit of a revelation, saying, “I was totally blown away by how the desserts, I feel like, are the culmination of human existence; where you take this wonderful tasting stuff, and it's a work‑of‑art that is on display, and then, you eat the work‑of‑art.” 

‘Crime Scene Kitchen’ airs Wednesdays at 9/8c on FOX.