They missed a lot of clues. But, did a 'spot-on' cheesecake save Wausau bakery owners Monday on ‘Crime Scene Kitchen’?

For a second week, Wausau bakery owners Kathleen Regelman and Hannah Reyes narrowly escaped elimination on the Fox reality baking competition "Crime Scene Kitchen."

"So, the last time didn't go as planned," Reyes said at the beginning of Monday's episode. "We are just ready to start over and start fresh, and we are excited to have a second chance to show the judges what we can do."

"But, there's no telling what the Crime Scene Kitchen will throw at you," Regelman said.

During the premiere episode on June 5, 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, but were saved because their attention to detail and sleuthing skills led them to create a blood orange and orange upside-down cake garnished with blackberries, which was almost spot-on for the mystery dessert in the episode's elimination round.

This season of “Crime Scene Kitchen” pits six teams of self-taught bakers against teams of classically-trained competitors. On Monday, the five remaining teams of self-taught bakers were back in the spotlight.

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.

In Monday's safety bake, the teams found a Crime Scene Kitchen full of clues, including caramel, creme de menthe, mint extract, two square pans, cream cheese, oats, cinnamon, four recipe cards each with different ingredients listed, instant coffee and more. A key clue was a to-do list note that read: "Figure out which brownies you can make."

Most teams − including Reyes and Regelman − missed some of the clues, including the language in the note that asked bakers which brownies they can make. The mystery dessert in the first round was two different brownies: a mint chocolate brownie with mint cream cheese frosting and a chocolate ganache topping and a coffee brownie with an oat-cinnamon crumb topping.

Reyes and Regelman did make two different brownies and came very close with their first brownie − a cream cheese creme de menthe brownie, but missed the mark on the second by making a white chocolate macadamia nut blondie.

"You can almost see that this is nice and fudgy, which I really like," Stone said when looking at the creme de menthe brownie.

During the elimination bake, the contestants found a single pan, four packages of cream cheese, fruit compote, cocoa powder, graham crackers, and a burnt piece of parchment paper. Some of the items had been used and others were not.

Reyes and Regelman created a cheesecake with a graham cracker crust with a blueberry compote topped with whipped cream.

Stone described it as "delightful," and said the flavor was "really spot-on. The sweetness is good. Your crust is really nice and I really like your blueberry topping."

But, the Wausau women's decision to ignore the burnt parchment paper found in the Crime Scene Kitchen trash can, meant their dessert was not spot-on with the mystery dessert: a crust-less basque cheesecake with a blueberry and blackberry compote.

Gampp said in addition to the burnt parchment paper, teams also should have noticed the oven in the Crime Scene Kitchen was set to 450 degrees, because no crusted cheesecake is cooked at that high of a temperature.

Two of the four teams that competed in the elimination round made a crusted cheesecake, and Reyes and Regelman were saved because the other team used cocoa powder in their graham cracker crust.

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Editor Jamie Rokus can be reach at jrokus@gannett.com or follow her on Twitter at @Jamie_Rokus.

This article originally appeared on Wausau Daily Herald: Did cheesecake save Wausau bakery owners Monday on Crime Scene Kitchen