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Top Chef - Just Desserts 2

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coolio:
This season is really high stakes. I hate Craig's voice.

apskip:
TC-JD2, Ep. 4

This episode was only an elimination challenge, as it was a huge project that left no time for any Quickfire. The chefs were given VIP tickets to a movie, which turned out to be Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, the favorite of several of them from their childhood. After the movie was over, Gail Simmons appeared on stage and invited some “special guests” from the general audience to come. 4 individuals did:Julie Dawn Cole (Veruca Salt), Paris Themmen (Mike TeeVee), Denise Nickerson (Violet Beauregarde) Peter Ostrum (Charlie Bucket).They were original cast members from the movie all grown up 40 years later, as a 40th Anniversary DVD is being released. To celebrate that, the pastry chefs were going to honor the film and the actors with special sets and desserts, Create a Room of Pure Edible Imagination. They had 13 hours to cook.

The first order of business was organization of tasks. Chris had a vision which he wanted and insisted on, to have a “Creative Team” with focus on structures to be used by all(but each one of that team still to do one dessert) and a “Production Team” top do the higher volume desserts. Here were the volunteers for each team:

Creative – Chris, Orlando, Matthew, Megan
Production – Amanda, Carlos, Craig, Katzie, Melissa, Rebecca, Sally

As creation and cooking was proceeding John Iuzzini came to assess progress and he casually stated that there were would two eliminations for this episode instead of the usual one. The largest and most difficult structure was Chris’ chocolate fountain attempting to match the one in the movie. Orlando said that he had prepared 260 pounds of chocolate for use in a variety of ways by the others.

The finished products were:
Amanda - Chocolate Tulip Cups with Blueberry Sauce; Raspberry Fizzy Chocolates
Carlos - Fruit Wallpaper, Peanut Butter and Jelly Macarons, Meringue Lollipops
Craig – Giant Gummy Bears
Chris – Chocolate Waterfall, Almond Lemon Daquois
Katzie – Carrot Patch, Beehive
Matthew- Strawberry, Lemon, Vanilla Profiteroles
Megan- Creamsicle Curd with Lavender Shortbread; Bourbon Caramel Candy Bar Pops
Melissa – Green Donuts, Pudding Cup w/ Olive Gum, Whoopie Pie Daisies
Orlando – Raspberry Chocolate Crunches
Rebecca – "Golden Egg" Cakes
Sally - Vanilla and Coffee Bean Moon Pies; Pistachio Financier, Orange Dirt, Milk Chocolate Mousse

The room the chefs prepared was visually stunning, but some of the desserts had problems. Dozens of kids, a logical group of samplers, were imported from somewhere. Megan’s bourbon caramel candy bar pops were a bit too adult for them or for any teetolers. The chocolate fountain was very well received because it actually worked.

The judges included the usual Iuzzini, Simmons and Hubert Keller plus Ron Ben-Israel, owner of Ron Ben-Israel Cakes. They left 3 chefs (Chris, Orlando and Rebecca behind) and asked the other 7 to come visit them. Nobody knew what to expect because that group was too large to be either the winner’s group or the loser’s group. It turned out that it contained both. Katzie, Carlos and Matthew were in the winner’s group and Katzie got the nod for best dessert. The loser’s group was Melissa, Sally, Craig and Megan. Here were the comments:
Melissa – green donuts poorly executed
Craig – did not demonstrate much skill level
Megan – balance of flavors in her bourbon pops
Sally – presentation of orange dirt was poor
Two of the group of seven spoke up to say that Megan had helped them a lot. John Iuzzini said that should not matter if she failed to get her own dessert to a suitable level.

The axe fell on Craig, who was overdue, and Melissa, who had also not done well in earlier episodes as well as this one.

franxaverian:
As I promised in the AGT thread...I will try giving some additions if needed.

Sally's dessert didn't utilize enough skills expected. If somehow Mellisa only serve the Whoopie Pie Daisies, I can see the teacher-student going home in one night.

@Apskip: Did you watch the 'what to expect in this season' on the end of episode 1? If I'm not mistaken, they somehow reveal the top 6 contestants (similar to how the NASA task in TC 7 was shown and how we know the top 5 by episode 1).

I'm rooting for Matthew to win this season..

apskip:
I have not identified favorites yet, but these pastry chefs seem to be doing well:

Matthew
Carlos
Megan (despite her troubles this week)
Katzie

I am going to wait a bit before projecting them as the Final 4.

apskip:
TC-JD2, Ep. 5

The guest judge is Pichet Ong, a renowned New York City pastry chef. The Quickfire is to create a candy bar in 1 ¾ hours. The candy bars presented were:

Amanda – Earl Grey chocolate ganache w/ caramel
Carlos – Choconana-peanut butter crisp w/ fudge cake, banana pudding, chocolate Pop Rocks
Chris – white candy bar; black candy bar
Katzie – Caramel Cove- brown butter, caramelized banana curd, jasmine ganache w/ dark chocolate bar on top
Matthew- hazelnut feuilletine praline w/ orange vanilla chocolate crème anglaise
Megan – ginger buckeye blast
Orlando- Berry Blast - blackberry port jam w/ chocolate
Rebecca- granola, panna cotta, orange marmalade, white chocolate
Sally – peanut butter, chocolate, cocoa nibs, chocolate ganache

Pichet rated the loser’s group to be Matthew’s unfinished chocolate glaze and Katzie’s “mess on a stick” even though it wasn’t on a stick. The winner’s group was Rebecca and Sally. Sally was the winner of immunity for the Elimination Challenge.

Elimination Challenge
This was to create an innovative dessert treat for people eating at the  Water Park. There was a nominal grouping into 3 sets of 3 chefs, but it was solely an individual competition:
Green Team – Rebecca, Megan, Katzie
Blue Team – Carlos, Sally, Amanda
Black Team – Orlando, Matthew, Chris

There was 12 hours to cook and another 1.5 hours at the Raging Waters water park to set up. A major issue became who got priority over scarce ice cream machine time in the kitchen. Chris gave up on the possibility of using it and substituted a pacojet system with liquid nitrogen to freeze his mix. Another issue was Chris “borrowing” Carlos’ liquid nitrogen container.  It appeared to be a hot day, although the real production date was probably in early May. In any event, some of the presented desserts were not holding up well over time, particularly for those judged in the final group, which was the Green team:

Carlos- Cap'n Crunch ice cream bar that is sprinkled with Fruity Pebbles and, once again, include pop rocks
Sally- berry smoothie w/ rice crispies
Amanda- funnel cakes w/ coconut sorbet
Orlando- chocolate vanilla ice cream sandwich/root beer float combination
Matthew- shortcake concoction with warm strawberries
Chris- passion mixer w/ginger fizz, cilantro infusion served through a mini- ice sculpture
Rebecca- lemon snickerdoodle ice cream sandwich
Megan- strawberry soda float with a white peach and basil sorbet
Katzie- Baked Alaska using spumoni ice cream on a stick

The judges selected Rebecca, Megan and Katzie as having the best individual desserts (Katzie won the honor of best) and all 6 of the rest as the losers’ group. The “what went wrong” discussion highlighted these issues:
Orlando- Gail said is wasn’t refreshing
Matthew- Pichet liked it if in restaurant; Dannielle said it was warm on hot summer’s day
Chris- Johnny criticized drink for leaving a syrupy sticky residue in back of his throat
Carlos – sweet dessert with not enough acid
Sally – Johnny criticized her strongly for not accomplishing much during cooking time
Amanda- Dannielle called it “a pretzel” in a derogatory fashion
On the second round at Judges’ Table, Matthew, Sally and Chris were excused. The second round comments were:
Amanda- funnel cakes were OK originally, but deteriorated over time; they can only be made fresh

Amanda was deemed the worst and eliminated.

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