Celebrity MasterChef 2014: Jodie Kidd and Millie Mackintosh among this year's cooks

Who will succeed Ade Edmondson as king or queen of the kitchen?

The first batch of Celebrity MasterChef contestants (BBC)

Jodie Kidd, Millie Mackintosh, JLS’ JB Gill and Kiki Dee are among the celebrities entering the kitchen tonight for the new series of Celebrity MasterChef.

Twenty famous faces will battle to show off their culinary talents, or amusing lack of, to judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace.

Scroll to see this year’s contestants

Tonight, supermodel Jodie, actor Sophie Thompson, author and broadcaster Russell Grant, actor Todd Carty and fashion journalist Susannah Constantine will be asked to make their own spring rolls and dipping sauce from a range of surprise ingredients in just 50 minutes.

Next, the celebrities will be split into two groups to try preparing dishes for paying customers in a working restaurant. Expect the pressure to be too much in the kitchens of both Babbo and Aqua Shard.

As Susannah dubiously sums it up: "It's like doing Formula One without any wheels. Backwards."

Finally, the contestants return to MasterChef headquarters to design and cook a two-course meal in 75 minutes before one of them is sent home.

The heats continue on Thursday, when the four remaining celebrities will tackle the Knowledge and Skills test (identifying ingredients one by one with John and Gregg) and their first mass catering challenge – providing lunch for more than 100 staff members at the Royal Mail’s largest sorting office.

Over the next six weeks, 15 more celebrities will compete to be MasterChef champion. Semi-final week will involve cooking for Shakespeare’s 450th birthday, impressing guest judge Rosemary Shrager in the Great British Recipe Test and the first ever Relay Invention Test.

This year’s final will see the three best chefs face the Italian ‘cooking mafia’ at the Chef’s Table before preparing a three-course meal for John and Gregg.

Last year’s heated competition was won by British comedian Ade Edmondson, whose former Dangerous Brothers partner Rik Mayall died yesterday aged 56.

Liz McClarnon, Matt Dawson and Phil Vickery are also among past winners.