TV preview
“The American Baking Competition,” 8 p.m. Wednesdays, CBS
When you think of Jeff Foxworthy, you may conjure up images of rednecks, deer hunting, RVs, maybe beef jerky.
But macaroons and pecan sandies? Not so much.
Yet starting Wednesday night, the Alpharetta stand-up comic will be hosting a CBS reality competition show, “The American Baking Competition,” shot at the picturesque Gibbs Gardens at Ball Ground.
“When they asked me, I laughed,” Foxworthy said in a recent interview. “I told them, ‘No. I don’t think so.’ I had never baked anything in my life. It would be like me hosting a show about brain surgery.”
The producers explained to him that the show had been a big hit in Great Britain, from where America has imported monster hits such as “Dancing With the Stars” and “American Idol.”
They persuaded Foxworthy to at least download an episode of the U.K. version called “The Great British Bake Off.” “I decided to humor them, so I watched it. I called them back and said: ‘Please let me do this show. I would be fascinated!’ “
The setup is familiar to anybody who watches “Top Chef” or “MasterChef.” Ten amateur bakers battle for $250,000 and a chance to write a cookbook through a series of challenges, judged by two celebrity chefs.
“I’m the liaison for the idiot at home,” he said.
Foxworthy joined in with the judges to sample the creations, a fork in hand ready to dig in. (He loves cake and cookies and said he gained 5 pounds over a month.)
“I’m just here for the free food!” he cracked on the show.
Foxworthy has become a go-to person to host shows since Fox’s “Are You Smarter Than a Fifth Grader?” He just completed two successful seasons of GSN’s “American Bible Challenge.”
The biggest difference is a baking competition takes a lot more time to tape than a game show. “It took a month to film seven or eight episodes,” he said. “With ‘Bible,’ we could churn out two or three in a day. In this case, you have to let the dough rise.”
Foxworthy said the show had some trouble coming up with a title. Pillsbury has a lock on the phrase “Bake-Off.” And since GSN’s Bible show uses the word “challenge,” CBS didn’t want to sow confusion. So it used the more generic “competition.”
The show was shot under a big tent in March. The weather didn’t cooperate, Foxworthy said. “In the early episodes,” he said, “I was visibly shaking I was so cold. We’d stand in front of open ovens to stay warm.”
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