Top Chef Just Desserts, 10/5/11

Be gone, bad memories of last week’s yuck episode! For we are emphatically back to yum. Quickfire: everybody has to make a doughnut. Yay!

Wait — time out. Past guest judges Hugh Acheson, Ad Rock, and Jordan Khan are cuties, and this week’s guest judge, doughnut dude Mark Israel, is a total hunk, too. High five, Gail! Because I know she’s behind this. I can totally see her texting the guys’ headshots to Padma, with “U r so jealous!” Padma is so going to retaliate with a shirtless male model episode on the upcoming season of Top Chef Texas.

Ok, time back in. But this can’t be just any doughnut. It has to be worthy of $10,000! The chefs are all elated about this — then Johnny (whose headshot was also texted to Padma) enters and bursts everyone’s happy bubble: the loser of this Quickfire is going home. Oh snap! Who will create a delectable doughnut of dollars, and who will create a dastardly doughnut of devastation???? The chefs get to work.


- Katzie: beignet filled w date ganache fried in a cocoa batter rolled in nuts
- Carlos: orange and lemon zest bombolinis filled w passion fruit cream
- Orlando: spiced banana beignet
- Megan: cake doughnut w honey cardamom glaze
- Chris: citrus churros w raspberry jam
- Sally: espresso glazed doughnut w caramelized cashews
- Hot Matthew: ginger beignet w caramel and whipped javara cream

Drool drool drool *stomach growl* drool mouth-watering scrumptiousness NOM NOM NOM.


Sally and Carlos are the favorites. Carlos wins! Yaaaaaaaay! I hate Sally cuz she’s always hating on Katzie. Carlos, who has six damn kids to feed, nearly passes out from joy. Go Carlos! Megan is in the bottom; her doughnut was overglazed. OH NO, Hot Matthew is in the bottom, too. His sauce and doughnut were too much sweetness, and his cream added nothing. Orlando is in the bottom; the cardamom in his doughnut was undetectable. Orlando, who is incapable of taking criticism, says he didn’t promise a cardamom doughnut. Johnny says he couldn’t taste any spice, period. They argue. I cross my fingers and hope he gets sent home. Alas! It’s Megan. I liked her. :(


Elimination:
The chefs are split into two teams of three. They must make a “magnificent” chocolate showpiece plus an individual dessert. And they’ll be serving their desserts to each other and critiquing each other’s food. Red Team: Chris, Hot Matthew, Katzie. Blue Team: Orlando, Sally, Carlos. Chris and Orlando will be working on the showpiece for their teams. Chris: “My showpiece really doesn’t have a name or a theme; it’s just contemporary.” Orlando: “The theme to the showpiece is telling a story from where chocolate started off from a cocoa pod.” You say “proud of his work”; I say “pretentious.” Then Orlando says he always incorporates height because “I like my showpieces like I like my men: tall.” Wait — men???? I HAVE THE WORLD’S WORST GAYDAR. :(


Red Team:
- Chris: chocolate cream-filled chocolate brioche drizzled with butter and brown sugar topped w nutella crunch served w vanilla ice cream
- Hot Matthew: chocolate tart over liquid caramel w chocolate chibouse, compressed cherries served w chocolate sorbet
- Katzie: boca negra torte w praline-milk chocolate mousse, jasmine-and-passion fruit curd, candied violets, and whipped cream glace

Blue Team:
- Orlando: milk chocolate sorbet between puff pastry over mango coulis w cocoa sorbet
- Sally: manjari caramel mousse, spiced caramel cream, passion fruit gelee
- Carlos caramelized cremeux, chocolate mousse, peanut butter pudding, caramelized banana

Drool drool drool *stomach growl* drool mouth-watering scrumptiousness NOM NOM NOM.

I’m so not going to bother mentioning all the bullcrap criticism each team had for the other team’s showpiece and desserts. It was just a bunch of gratuitous nobody’s-is-as-good-as-mine bashing. For example, Orlando blathers on and on AND ON AND ONNNNNNNNNN about not liking the appearance of Katzie’s dessert. *eye roll* Moving on.


Judging:
Orlando, Sally, and Carlos win! Carlos had a very good day today.

Guest judge Wiley Dufresne (Every time he pops up as a judge I think the same thing: I love his name.) tells Chris that the texture of his dessert was strange. Johnny tells Katzie he couldn’t taste any jasmine her dessert. The judges felt that Hot Matthew’s dessert was too sweet.

Katzie is sent home. Darn! I’ve been Team Katzie ever since she won the Willie Wonka challenge. Guess I’m now officially Team Hot Matthew.

Top Chef Just Desserts, 9/21/11

Quickfire:
Wait. Can I have another Willie Wonka-themed episode? No? *pouts* Ok, ok.

Quickfire:
Gail and guest judge pastry chef Pichet Ong inform the chefs that they must create a new candy bar. Nice. (I will be assigning Winner In My Book Awards [WIMBAs] to whoever does NOT use nuts. Because I BLOODY EFFING HATE NUTS.) As the chefs rattle off the delicious ingredients and flavor combinations they’re using, I wonder for the 500th time why come every pastry chef is not morbidly obese. Chris says he’s making two candy bars instead of one, and I’m reminded of something Tom Colicchio said once on Top Chef after a contestant made two bad ceviches: don’t do two things mediocrely when you can do one thing well. Yes, I paraphrased that, and no, “mediocrely” is not a word. Omg, surprise niceness! Rebecca, whose arm is still in a cast, is struggling mightily and dropping liquid nitrogen vats all over the place, and Orlando, of all people, helps her finish her candy bar. He comes across as such an insufferably self centered know-it-all that I was pretty shocked by that. Good lookin’ out, Orlando.


- Katzie: brown butter and caramelized banana jasmine curd with dark chocolate and praline crunch
- Carlos: peanut butter crisp with fudge cake and banana pudding covered in chocolate and topped with chocolate pop rocks (WIMBA!)
- Sally: peanut butter, puffed forbidden rice, cocoa nibs, milk chocolate ganache (WIMBA!) Katzie observes that Sally used forbidden rice only cuz she knows Pinchet really likes it. Clever girl, that Sally.
- Hot Matthew: hazelnut feulletine praline with orange vanilla chocolate crème anglaise
- Carlos: blackberry port jam in chocolate ganache (WIMBA!)
- Chris: white chocolate with banana caramel, milk chocolate with chocolate ganache and nuts—and both are delicious and not made mediocrely.

- Amanda: earl gray tea white chocolate ganache with bitter orange caramel in chocolate (WIMBA!) Observation: Amanda looks a lot like Katy Perry.
- Megan: peanuts, peanut butter, butter caramel, ginger, and feulletine in dark chocolate
- Rebecca: granola, panna cotta, orange marmalade in white chocolate (WIMBA!)

Hot Matthew and Katzie are in the bottom; Sally and Rebecca are in the top. Rebecca thanks Orlando for his assistance. Sally wins; she has immunity.

Elimination:
Team challenge. The teams must make refreshing and summery desserts for people at a water park. Prediction time! Some desserts will
#1 melt in the heat
#2 be neither refreshing nor summery
An argument breaks out over who all will use the two ice cream machines when and in what order. Oh hello, prediction #1.

Let us pause for reflection. Why are there only two ice cream machines on a tv show about dessert-making? What if there’s, oh, I don’t know, a summer-desserts challenge? Or an ice cream challenge? This makes no sense to me. I guess the lack of equipment is intentional, so that we can enjoy the drama as it’s-my-turn! squabbles and fights break out. Katzie and Carlos eventually worked it out, but for a second there, it was intense. Well — as intense as pastry chefs can get, that is.


Johnny time! He is worried by Carlos’s dessert. The dessert Katzie is making, it turns out, is inspired by the spumoni at a restaurant whose owners Johnny knows personally. “Uh oh! You better make it good, girl!” laughs Rebecca. Johnny’s impressed that Amanda’s making funnel cake. As Johnny watches, Katzie runs over to save her ice cream, which is spilling out of the machine cuz she forgot to close the door. Day Two: Katzie: “I’m nervous because we’re serving frozen treats at a water park, and heat can always be a problem when it comes to desserts.” Oh hello, prediction #1. Sally admits she has a lesbian crush on Amanda. (Whatever. Show me more of the Hot Matthew-Chris bromance, dammit.)

The chefs head for the water park, and I am LOLed at seeing them in their chef’s coats … over short shorts.

- Chris made passion mixer with ginger fizz. He pours servings through a huge block of ice. It’s boiling hot out, so the judges love that. Johnny: “Well done, chefs.” Dannielle: “It’s hot out here, and this is refreshing.” But then Johnny critiques: “As much as it is acidic and tart, I have a stickiness at the back of my throat now when I’m done, and that’s definitely from the sugar.”
- Orlando made what he’s calling a root beer float-inspired dessert: chocolate vanilla cake brownie in steeped milk with nutmeg and root beer foam. The judges say it ain’t at all summery or refreshing. I completely agree. And hello, prediction #2. Orlando explains that he was trying to get away from the traditional root beer float; Johnny says then he shouldn’t have called it that.
- Hot Matthew makes the judges wait, quite impatiently, as he prepares his take on strawberry shortcake: yellow butter cake, whole milk ice cream, sautéed strawberries, and strawberry jus. Gail says the strawberries should have been cold and fresh instead of hot and cooked.


- Rebecca made lemon ice cream between two snickerdoodles dipped in white chocolate, with crushed lemon drops. Dannielle loves it mucho.
- Megan made a strawberry soda float with peach-and-basil sorbet. Johnny praises her for making basil kid-friendly and delicious; Gail says the strawberry was a bit too sweet.
- Katzie made spumoni with a twist: baked Alaska on a stick with a fizzy cherry. Dannielle calls it nuanced and sophisticated.


- Carlos made a Cap’n Crunch popsicle dipped in white chocolate and sprinkled with Fruity Pebbles. Rolled in Frosted Flakes, tossed in Apple Jacks, and adorned with Fruit Loops. I made that last part up. Pichet says it ain’t at all summery or refreshing. Re-hello, prediction #2.
- Sally made a healthy berry smoothie (I knew it would suck the second I heard “healthy”) with honey and vanilla bean and white chocolate Rice Krispies. Johnny says he would have preferred fruit- instead of chocolate-flavored Krispies. Sally, who has immunity, probably isn’t even listening.
- Amanda made funnel cake with pineapple jam and coconut sorbet. The judges didn’t like how it got severely unfresh as it waited to be eaten.

Ok so, I was wrong about #1, but spot-on with #2.


Judging:
Top: Megan, Katzie, and Rebecca are the winning team. Pichet proclaims Katzie the winner. She is uber-relieved, admitting that she was hellified nervous about serving her dessert to Johnny. But dude was chowing down on it at the water park, so he was clearly pleased. This is two wins in a row for her. Team Katzie!

Bottom: everybody else sucked. Sally’s smoothie is, as expected, hated upon. Sally, who has immunity, probably isn’t even listening. Carlos’s dessert was too sweet, and Pichet doesn’t like his overuse of breakfast cereals. Amanda let her funnel cake sit too long before serving it. She explains that she had to wait as her two teammates went first; Johnny says she should have spoken up. I gotta agree. I totally would’ve pulled a Hot Matthew and made them impatiently wait while I prepared my dish fresh.


Gail asks Orlando why he thinks his team’s in the bottom. He replies that he is uncertain. Oh, come on. I get that he has a huge ego, but see above. His and Hot Matthew’s dishes were very much misses and not hits, and Chris’s was only partially a hit. As Orlando well knows. Gail’s facial expression made it pretty clear that his answer annoyed her, LOLOLOL. Dannielle explains that their desserts weren’t practical to the environment. Chris begs to differ about his dessert; Johnny counters that it was sticky and syrupy, which is not refreshing. The judges give Orlando another try: Dannielle asks him if he would change any of the components of his dish. He says no. *eye roll* Pichet says he would’ve loved Hot Matthew’s strawberry shortcake in a restaurant but not at a water park on a scorching hot day.

Hot Matthew, Sally, and Chris are safe, leaving Orlando, Carlos, and Amanda. Amanda is sent home. Bye bye, Katy Perry look-alike and Sally’s lesbian crush. :(

Top Chef Just Desserts, 9/21/11

Quickfire:
Wait. Can I have another Willie Wonka-themed episode? No? *pouts* Ok, ok.

Quickfire:
Gail and guest judge pastry chef Pichet Ong inform the chefs that they must create a new candy bar. Nice. (I will be assigning Winner In My Book Awards [WIMBAs] to whoever does NOT use nuts. Because I BLOODY EFFING HATE NUTS.) As the chefs rattle off the delicious ingredients and flavor combinations they’re using, I wonder for the 500th time why come every pastry chef is not morbidly obese. Uh oh. Chris is making two candy bars instead of one, which brings to mind something Tom Colicchio said once after a contestant on Top Chef made two bad ceviches: don’t do two things mediocrely when you can do one thing well. Yes, I paraphrased that, and no, “mediocrely” is not a word. Omg, surprise niceness! Rebecca, whose arm is still in a cast, is struggling mightily and dropping liquid nitrogen vats all over the place, and Orlando, of all people, helps her finish her candy bar. He comes across as such an insufferably self centered know-it-all that I was pretty shocked by that. Good lookin’ out, Orlando.

Katzie: brown butter and caramelized banana jasmine curd with dark chocolate and praline crunch
Carlos: peanut butter crisp with fudge cake and banana pudding covered in chocolate and topped with chocolate pop rocks. (WIMBA!)
Sally: peanut butter, puffed forbidden rice, cocoa nibs, milk chocolate ganache. (WIMBA!)
Hot Matthew: hazelnut feulletine praline with orange vanilla chocolate crème anglaise
Carlos: blackberry port jam in chocolate ganache (WIMBA!)
Chris: white chocolate with banana caramel, milk chocolate with chocolate ganache and nuts
Amanda: earl gray tea white chocolate ganache with bitter orange caramel in chocolate (WIMBA!)
Megan: peanuts, peanut butter, butter caramel, ginger, and feulletine in dark chocolate
Rebecca: granola, panna cotta, orange marmalade in white chocolate (WIMBA!)

Hot Matthew and Katzie are in the bottom; Sally and Rebecca are in the top; Sally wins; she gets immunity. Observation: Amanda looks a lot like Katy Perry.

Elimination:
This is a team challenge, in which everyone must make refreshing and summery desserts for people at a water park. Prediction time! Some desserts will
#1 melt in the heat
#2 be neither refreshing nor summery
An argument breaks out over who all will use the two ice cream machines when and in what order. Oh hello, prediction #1. Johnny time! He enters just as Carlos is yelling the order in which the machine will be used. He is worried by Carlos’s dessert. The dessert Katzie is making, it turns out, is inspired by a restaurant whose owners Johnny knows personally. “Uh oh! You better make it good, girl!” laughs Rebecca. Johnny’s impressed that Amanda’s making funnel cake. As Johnny watches, Katzie’s runs over to save her ice cream, which is spilling out of the machine cuz she forgot to close the door.

Day Two: Katzie: “I’m nervous because we’re serving frozen treats at a water park, and heat can always be a problem when it comes to desserts.” Oh hello, prediction #1. Sally admits she has a lesbian crush on Amanda. (Whatever. Show me more of the Hot Matthew-Chris bromance, dammit.) The chefs head for the water park, and I am LOLed at seeing them in their chef’s coats … over shorts.

- Chris made passion mixer with ginger fizz. He pours serveings through a huge block of ice. It’s boiling hot out, so the judges love that. Johnny: “Well done, chefs.” Dannielle: “It’s hot out here, and this is refreshing.” But then Johnny critiques: “As much as it is acidic and tart, I have a stickiness at the back of my throat now when I’m done, and that’s definitely from the sugar.”
- Orlando made a root beer float-inspired chocolate vanilla cake brownie in steeped milk with nutmeg and root beer foam. The judges say it ain’t at all summery or refreshing. Oh hello, prediction #2. Orlando says he was trying to get away from the traditional root beer float; Johnny says then he shouldn’t have called it that.
- Hot Matthew makes the judges wait, quite impatiently, as he prepares his take on strawberry shortcake: yellow butter cake, whole milk ice cream, sautéed strawberries, and strawberry jus. Gail says the strawberries should have been cold and fresh instead of hot and cooked.

- Rebecca made lemon ice cream between two snickerdoodles dipped in white chocolate, with crushed lemon drops. Dannielle loves it mucho.
- Megan made a strawberry soda float with white peach and basil sorbet. Johnny praises her for making basil kid-friendy; Gail says the strawberry was too sweet.
- Katzie made spumoni with a twist: baked Alaska on a stick with a fizzy cherry. Dannielle calls it nuanced and sophisticated.

- Carlos made a Cap’n Crunch popsicle dipped in white chocolate and sprinkled with Fruity Pebbles. Rolled in Frosted Flakes and adorned with Fruit Loops. I made that last part up. Pichet says it ain’t at all summery or refreshing. Oh hello, prediction #2.
- Sally made a berry smoothie with honey and vanilla bean and white chocolate Rice Krispies. Johnny says he would have preferred fruit- instead of chocolate-flavored Krispies. Sally, who has immunity, probably isn’t even listening.
- Amanda made funnel cake with pineapple jam and coconut sorbet. The judges didn’t like how it got unfresh while it waited to be eaten.

Ok so, I was wrong about #1, but spot-on with #2.

Judging:
Gail requests the presence of Megan, Katzie, and Rebecca. They are the winning team. Pichet proclaims Katzie the winner! Two in a row! Team Katzie!

Sally’s smoothie is hated upon. Sally, who has immunity, probably isn’t even listening. Carlos’s dessert was too sweet, and Pichet doesn’t like his use of breakfast cereals. Amanda let her funnel cake sit too long before serving it; she said that she had to wait cuz her two teammates had gone first; Johnny says she should have spoken up. I gotta agree. I totally would’ve pulled a Hot Matthew and made them wait, quite impatiently, while I prepared my dish fresh.

Gail asks Orlando why he thinks his team’s in the bottom. He replies that he is uncertain. Oh, come on. I get that he has a huge ego, but see above. His and Hot Matthew’s dishes were very much misses and not hits, and Chris’s was only partially a hit. As Orlando well knows. Gail’s facial expression made it pretty clear that his answer annoyed her, LOLOLOL. Dannielle explains that their desserts weren’t practical to the environment. Chris begs to differ about his dessert; Johnny counters that it was sticky and syrupy, which is not refreshing. The judges give Orlando another try: Dannielle asks him if he would change any of the components of his dish. He says no. Wow. Pichet says he would’ve loved Hot Matthew’s strawberry shortcake in a restaurant but not at a water park on a scorching hot day.

Hot Matthew, Sally, and Chris are safe, leaving Orlando, Carlos, and Amanda. Amanda is sent home. Bye bye, Sally’s lesbian crush. :(

Top Chef Just Desserts, 9/14/11

The chefs read a letter from Gail inviting them to come see a movie (and she actually signs it with “xoxo,” which I didn’t know people still did). Amanda, proving that she’s really naïve, assumes that going to the movies will be “a day off from the kitchen.” Woman, please. Hot Matthew, WAY more perceptive, buys items at the concession stand that he can cook with, should they all suddenly be ordered into the kitchen. Not just a pretty face, that Hot Matthew.

–gasp– EEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeEEEEEEEEEEEeeeeeeeeeeee! Willie Wonka and the Chocolate Factory!!!!! One of my top four movies from childhood (with The Goonies, Stand By Me, and The Princess Bride)! I'm so excited!


And the contestants are right there with me: Orlando knows all the dialogue, Katzie trills “I LOVE that movie,” and Amanda is (still) jealous of the everything-is-edible scene (as am I). Thank god we didn’t have to endure anyone saying they don’t like/have never seen WWatCF, because I would have gone beserkalistic. I knew before we were told who they were that the peeps in the audience were the actors from the movie all growed up, but only because I saw them a few years ago on a reunion special. When their identities are revealed, everyone has a collective fit. Sally joyfully bounces in her seat, Chris actually wipes a tear, Craig squeaks that he has goosebumps.

I am seriously SO indescribably pleased that all the contestants are as crazy for this movie as I am.

There’s no Quickfire. Gail informs the chefs that in honor of the release of the 40th anniversary (Wow. Forty years ago? Wow.) ultimate collector’s edition of WWatCF, the Elimination Challenge is that they will be … wait for it … they will be recreating the everything-is-edible scene! I squeal like a little girl and clap my hands. THIS IS GOING TO BE EPIC.


Everyone divides into two teams: Creative, consisting of Megan, Hot Matthew, Orlando, and Chris, which will make desserts and also work on special projects; and Production, consisting of Amanda, Sally, Rebecca (still wearing a cast), Katzie, Craig, and Melissa, which will focus only on desserts. Judge Johnny pops in, says he’s envious that the chefs get to work on this. (I’m jealous of whoever’ll get to eat everything.) Orlando informs him that 250 pounds of chocolate have been used so far. Rebecca tells him she’s making her Veruca Salt cupcakes. Melissa (who tells him “This is my favorite movie in the whole wide world,” to which he responds, “Mine too,” YAY!!!) says she’s making whoopee pies and donut flowers. Megan tells him she’s making candy bar bites with bourbon. Johnny’s worried that bourbon “sounds very adult, but this challenge is about being youthful and playful.” Before leaving, he drops a bombshell: this will be a double elimination. OH SNAP.

The last hours of prep on day two pass in a frenzy as, terrified of a double elimination, everyone works feverishly to finish desserts and perfect displays. TIME! The judges along with guest judge Ron Ben Israel and the WWatCF cast enter. Everyone is amazed at how good the room looks, and I couldn’t agree more:

I superloved how the music for “Pure Imagination” was playing as everyone stared and pointed and oohed and aahed. Honestly, Top Chef Just Desserts. Best. Episode. EVAR. Gail announces special guests have been invited to chow down on all the sugary goodness (I get so jealous I see green.), and a slew of adults and kids (Megan immediately gets worried. See: bourbon.) enters and begins stuffing their faces.


Judging
Sally, Katzie, Melissa, Carlos, Craig, Hot Matthew, and Megan are called to the floor. In the top are Hot Matthew’s delicious, colorful, filled profiteroles; Katzie’s “buried” carrot cakes and beehive with a squeezable honey thingy, and Carlos’s pb&j macaroons and edible wallpaper. (Ron Ben Israel loved the wallpaper so much he whipped out the classic “The schnozzberries tasted like schnozzberries!” quote. STOP BLOWING MY MIND, EPISODE!) In the bottom are Craig, Melissa, Sally, and Megan. Craig himself acknowledged the badness of his too-big, flavorless gummy bears, which annoyed Hubert and his sexy ponytail. Melissa’s green donuts were horrific, but her cookies were good. Sally’s orange dirt was not at all a hit. Gail complains that Megan used bourbon for a kids’ challenge.


Ok — hang on. On one hand, yes, I guess maybe Megan should have foreseen that kids would probably be eating the desserts, but then again, at no point were the chefs told that this was “a kids’ challenge.” This is not like the flat-out idiocy that occurred in season seven on Top Chef when the challenge was to make a lunch for schoolchildren and Amanda made sherry-braised chicken. So I was quite glad when Carlos and Katzie defended Megan, explaining that as part of the Creative team, she had helped out a lot in other areas. Then I was quite annoyed when Megan started crying. I HATE crying.

Sally’s dish didn’t taste good and was hard to eat. Johnny thinks Craig is outclassed by his competition. The sugar level in Megan’s dessert was overwhelming. Melissa’s donuts were “green belly bombs.” And … Katzie wins! I am now Team Katzie, and I want her to win it all. Craig is sent home; that was no surprise. But Melissa? That was unexpected. I would’ve thought that one bad dessert would’ve outweighed one awesome + one bad dessert, and Sally would have been the one eliminated. Oh well. Now to watch this episode again.

And, hey, Gene Wilder? I love you.