Veteran-Turned-Pastry Chef Competes on Fox’s New Baking Competition Show

Tune into 'Crime Scene Kitchen' Wednesday night to see Alexandria's Erinn Roth of Ms. Jo's Petite Sweets.

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Erinn Roth still can’t believe she was chosen to compete on FOX’s new baking competition show.

“Crime Scene Kitchen” premieres this Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET.

“I can hear my mom saying, ‘If you want to hear God laugh, tell him your plans.’ If you had told me 90 days ago, if you had told me a year ago, during COVID, that I would be on a national TV show on this major network, I’d be like, ‘Yeah right, whatever,’ but God is laughing,” said Roth during a recent interview with Alexandria Living Magazine.

The show pits 12 teams of two people against each other to win a $100,000 prize. Teams are made up of both self-taught and professionally trained bakers.

The contestants are allowed to explore a kitchen that was recently used to bake a specific treat. They must use their baking skills and the clues left behind to determine what was baked and then they have two hours to recreate what they think it was. At the end of each episode, after two rounds, a team is eliminated. The show is hosted by actor Joel McHale with celebrity judges chef Curtis Stone and cake artist Yolanda Gampp.

It was Roth's late mother who inspired her to start her dessert and catering business, Ms. Jo’s Petite Sweets, after Roth retired from the U.S. Army as a Lieutenant Colonel in 2017. Her mother passed away suddenly a few months before retirement. “I was in a severe funk for a couple of months, until one day something said, ‘Get up off your butt and start that business.’ I feel like it was my mother talking to me, so I decided to, as an eternal tribute to her, name my business after her. Ms. Jo is my mom’s first name,” Roth explained.

Roth said that starting her own business was tough but worth it and she passes on the lessons she learned to others who are considering starting their own business. “If you’re lazy, don’t be a small business owner,” she said with a laugh.

A year ago, Roth hired a social media manager to help her with branding. It was the Instagram hashtag #veteranbaker that caught the attention of a casting agent who was working on “Crime Scene Kitchen.” Roth wasn’t sure the DM she received from the casting company was legitimate, but after confirming it with an actor friend, she set up a call and the rigorous interview process began.

Roth was told she needed to pick a partner for the show because the competition is made up of teams of two bakers. She immediately thought of her friend Amanda Carter, whom she met at pastry school a few years earlier. Together, they filmed their audition tape in a conference room at local coworking spot ALX Community, where Roth is a member.

Following background checks, and a number of other steps, Roth and Carter were cast and quickly whisked out to Los Angeles on April 2.

Roth was blown away by the experience. “Coming on the studio, on the lot as they call it, it was like, 'Wow, this is really real!'” Roth described. They received their own trailer and each team had a state of the art kitchen to use on set.

Roth said she felt very safe on set, where the crew were masked and constantly cleaning. She also said everybody who worked on the show was so nice. “I have so much respect for TV world, let me tell you. It was grueling but it was fun, the shooting, the filming, but I have so much more respect for any show, any movie,” said Roth.

Roth and Carter were fans of celebrity judge Gampp before the show, and meeting her was an extra special experience for them. “For people like myself and Amanda, Yolanda Gampp — she’s Canadian — they call her the ‘Beyoncé of Cakes’ but I really think she’s better than that, she’s like a cake master, a cake artisan extraordinaire… If I had known she was going to be a judge I would have brought her book with me and she could have signed it,” Roth said.

Roth described being on “Crime Scene Kitchen” as a “bucket list” item she didn’t know she wanted.

“It was a great experience. Just to think that people thought that I was good enough to even come on the show, interesting enough to come on the show, it’s pretty humbling.”

Roth was operating out of a commercial kitchen in Alexandria’s West End but it was forced to shut down because of COVID-19 related losses. Now she is in the process of setting up at a kitchen in NE DC. To find out more about Ms. Jo’s Petite Sweets visit petitesweetsbymsjo.com.

Tune in to FOX on Wednesday at 9 p.m. ET to watch Roth on “Crime Scene Kitchen.”

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