Did Wausau bakery owners go home Monday on Fox's Crime Scene Kitchen?

A keen eye for detail saved Wausau bakers Kathleen Regelman and Hannah Reyes during the premiere episode of Fox's "Crime Scene Kitchen."

The second season of the reality baking competition kicked off Monday night, and the owners of Wausau's boutique-style bakery business Cup & Cake and Kreger's Bakery, 1506 N. Third St., were devastated when they presented an undercooked cake to the judges.

"We sacrificed so much to be here; we don't want a raw cake sending us home," said Regelman, 34, during the competition.

This season of "Crime Scene Kitchen" pits six teams of self-taught bakers against teams of classically-trained competitors. On Monday, the self-taught bakers took center stage.

Hosted by Joel McHale, each episode begins at the scene of the crime − a kitchen that was used to make an elaborate dessert that has since disappeared. The chef teams of two are challenged to scour the kitchen for clues and ingredients to figure out what was baked, and then must recreate the recipe based on their guess for celebrity judges Curtis Stone and Yolanda Gampp. Each week, bakers are eliminated and the winner at the end of the season takes home a $100,000 prize.

Regelman and Reyes told the Wausau Daily Herald in May that they did not pursue the opportunity to compete, but the show's producers contacted them on Instagram. After initially thinking it was spam, they reached out to share their story.

The show filmed about a year ago, and the military wives and moms to a combined seven kids, ranging in age from 2 to 9, say they were completely unprepared for the experience.

"We have been in a lot of stressful situations," said Reyes, 37, a Wausau native, "but neither of us have done reality TV before, and we went into it blind."

In the first round of Monday's competition − the safety bake − the bakers found clues that included lemon remnants in a garbage can, both lemon and lime on a zester, saltine crackers in a food processor and a used bottle of cream.

Most baking teams missed some of the clues to the mystery dessert: an Atlantic beach pie with a tangy lemon and lime filling, a saltine crust, a whipped cream topping and lemon and lime zest on top.

Regelman and Reyes made a lemon chiffon with a flakey pie crust and whipped cream topping.

Stone said the dessert was a "very light pie and the crispness of the crust is very good."

Gampp said it "had a lovely tart flavor and the crust is nice and crunchy, but part of me wants a thicker more luscious filling."

Regelman and Reyes then moved on to the elimination round, where they found blood orange and orange remnants around the kitchen, blood orange stains on a cutting board, a single used cake pan and what they thought was a container of used blackberries.

They created a blood orange and orange upside-down cake garnished with blackberries, which was almost spot on for the mystery dessert in the round.

But the judges were critical of the consistency of the Wausau team's cake, which was raw in the center.

"You guys opened and closed the oven quite a few times," Stone told the women, noting that doing so reduces the oven temperature significantly each time.

But, their attention to detail was enough to keep them in the competition.

Regelman and Reyes will have next week off as the classically-trained bakers will compete at 8 p.m. June 12.

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Editor Jamie Rokus can be reach at [email protected] or follow her on Twitter at @Jamie_Rokus.