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. :(