Top Chef Just Desserts, 10/26/11

For the challenge to determine who will win it all, the final three must make a display table featuring:
- showpiece
- bread element
- entremet cake (I love the yummy vocabulary this show has taught me.)
- bon bon
- and …

Johnny gets choked up remembering how he got to make his mother’s last birthday cake — Awwwww. How precious. I hug him through the tv screen. — then explains that they must also make a dessert for someone special in their lives. Hot Matthew and Chris have wives; I guess single Sally’s gonna go the mom route.
Then Jacques Torres, Sébastien Canonne, and Stephane Treand (automatic cool points for having a rhyming name!), giants in the pastry industry, enter. (YAY I GET TO HEAR FRENCH ACCENTS. Although my fave is still British.) They will be judging later, but for now providing input and being all mentor-like.


I’m so professionally jealous. What I wouldn’t give for, say, Stephen King to stop by and give me writing advice on my novel. Lucky damn dawgs. Wait—then I’m less jealous, because the three don’t just advise and leave; they stand around and watch Hot Matthew, Chris, and Sally cook. Nervewracking!!! But then they start helping. Stephane even washes dishes. Oh, you endearingly endearing Frenchies. The next day, all the eliminated contestants have returned to help. Hot Matthew gets Megan and Carlos, Chris gets Amanda and Rebecca (whose arm is STILL in a cast?!????), and Sally gets Van and Orlando. This latter selection makes her quite happy cuz he’s strong where she’s weak: showpieces.

Ok, I’m calling not-rightness. In every challenge when a showpiece had to be built, Chris and Orlando went head to head, cuz they’re the most skilled showpiecers. So it’s entirely unfair that Orlando is making Sally’s showpiece. Yes it’s her design; he’s just putting it together, but the challenge isn’t draw the best showpiece; it’s build the best showpiece. And Sally ain’t building nada. Hot Matthew and Chris are making theirs; Sally should have to make hers. This is cheating. Hot Matthew: “Chris’s showpiece is like, holy shit! As well as Orlando’s-I-mean-Sally’s.” Carlos: “I give Matt a lot of credit because he made his own showpiece … unlike some others.” Yeah, reason #42 I don’t want Sally to win.


Hot Matthew:
- entremet cake: hazelnut dacquois, raspberry and passion fruit gelee, milk jam, dark chocolate cremeux, milk chocolate whipped cream
- bread: focaccia bread with fresh thyme, olive oil, salt, and pepper
- bon bon: key lime BBs sitting on speculoos. Gail had never heard of speculoos, so she learned as new word.
- dessert: dark chocolate cake, raspberry mousse, cookies, pecan streusel, milk ice cream


Because the judges by now know Orlando’s work when they see it, Johnny asks Sally how much help she had on the showpiece. She readily admits Orlando built the whole thing, but says it was her design.
- entremet cake: chocolate caramel mouse, mango Bavarian, caramel cremeux, almond sponge cake
- bread: parker house roll w bacon, onion, gruyere
- bon bon: salted caramel milk chocolate BBs
- dessert: white chocolate espresso mousse and cashew nougatine inside a chocolate dome, chocolate cremeux, white chocolate espresso


Johnny points out that one of the brioches has fallen off Chris’s showpiece. Chris counters with “I made this myself. There was no help.” Exactly. Who cares if Sally’s piece was perfect? SHE DIDN’T MAKE IT.
- entremet cake: salty sugar dough, chocolate mousse, chocolate cake, vanilla cremeux, raspberry jam
- bread: brioche w maple bacon butter
- bon bon: coffee infused ganache and caramel BBs
- dessert: banana caramel inside butter almond cake topped with banana tuile and banana ice cream, with deglazed mango sauce

I do not envy the judges this decision at all.

Hot Matthew gets points for originality with speculoos. Johnny doesn’t get why he made a sugar showpiece if he’s better with chocolate, but Danielle says it looked like a love letter to his wife. His dessert gets knocked cuz it was confusing. Sally’s flow of color is praised.
She’s asked why she let Orlando do all the work. She says again that it was her idea and technique; he just put it together. Her dessert gets knocked cuz the mousse was seeping out of the dome. Chris’s showpiece gets knocked for the one falling brioche. (GET OVER IT.) His dessert gets high praise. They leave. Judges deliberate. They come back. Once again, all the eliminated contestants are there. (Ha ha haaa! Ok, this is just mean. It’s one thing to have to help the final three cook; it’s quite another to have to stand there and watch somebody else win.) And the winner is …

… Chris! Yaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay! Yaaaaaaay! Good for him! YAY!

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.