Top Chef: Just Desserts (2010) s01e02 Episode Script
Cocktail With a Twist
Previously on Top Chef: Just Desserts Game on, people.
I smell something burning.
I probably haven't made a cupcake since I was in home economics.
I am just freaking out.
I'm not able to plate the dessert.
Oh, my God.
First time in front of the judges, and Mr.
Chocolate himself, Jacques Torres.
I don't think that's the most decadent dessert.
Don't stress.
I do get anxiety about sleep.
I'm thinking, "you're not here to look pretty.
" Just pick a bed, get to it.
Some people are just gonna be a huge pain in the butt.
And the winner is Heather.
Oh, you're kidding.
Tania, your dessert just didn't measure up.
Now 11 pastry Chefs remain to compete for a feature in Food & Wine magazine, a showcase at the annual Pebble Beach Food & Wine festival, a German-engineered, sport-injected Buick Regal, and $100,000 furnished by Godiva Chocolatier.
Who has the creativity, the skill, and the drive to win Top Chef: Just Desserts? Top Chef: Just Desserts 1x02 Cocktail With a Twist Seth and I immediately formed a quick bond here in the house.
Yo, can you throw me my hat, dude, if you see it somewhere? We probably have more in common than any other cooks in the house.
We like a lot of the same Chefs, and we're both heterosexual males.
How do you shave with no shaving cream? That's [Bleep.]
painful.
It's the skin sensitivity, man.
I'll break out.
Really? Will you make me a coffee? Say it again.
Will you make me a coffee, please? Absolutely.
I'putting my order in.
I thought you said, "do you want to go golfing?" So now we're down to 11 Chefs in the house, and I'm kind of the go-to mama.
What's the coffee situation, big mama? There you go.
Oh, no, really? It's just that easy? It's that easy.
It could be I'm a little older.
I've had a lot of kitchens.
I've had a lot of employees.
I play that kind of motherly role.
So you're ready to rock? I'm R.
T.
R.
[Line ringing.]
Hello.
Hello? Mom? The reason I'm always striving to become a better pastry Chef is for my parents.
My mom has had just a bad run of physical surgeries and really bad luck.
How's your rehab coming? Just tell me quickly.
Are you feeling better or worse? If I didn't, you know, care about her and worry about her so much and just love her so much, I wouldn't have the passion to cook.
And I hope that she just understands that I need to win this for her.
I love you so much.
I love you so much.
And tell dad I love him, and I'm thinking about you guys, okay? All right.
Love you.
Bye-bye.
Okay, guys, let's go.
Okay.
So we walk into the kitchen, and the first thing I actually see is Elizabeth Falkner.
She is one of my idols.
And it's probably a few minutes before I even realize that there's a whole wall of candy behind her.
Hello, Chefs.
All: Hi, Gail.
I'd like to introduce you to your judge for this quickfire challenge.
She's the owner of San Francisco's famous Citizen Cake Patisserie as well as Orson Restaurant, acclaimed pastry Chef, Top Chef judge, and, of course, Top Chef Master, Elizabeth Falkner.
[Cheers and applause.]
Hello, Chefs.
Elizabeth Falkner is probably the coolest pastry Chef there is.
You don't even want to be her friend.
Like, you just want to be her.
I'm sure you all have fond memories of being kids in a candy store.
Well, for your quickfire challenge, you're going to be creating a dish that celebrates penny candy.
I didn't eat a lot of candy when I was growing up.
I would say I was more of a chocolate lover.
So I'm a little nervous about what I'm planning to do with it.
So I know we make a lot of things from scratch, but here we're asking you to come up with some things using already premanufactured candies.
And this is challenging, because there's already different colors and flavors inherently in these candies.
I want people to see what pastry Chefs are capable of doing.
I want some kick-ass desserts.
Oy.
The winner will get immunity in our next elimination challenge.
You have one hour to create your penny-candy masterpiece.
You can use as many or as few flavors as you want.
And your time starts now.
I've got so much candy in my mouth.
I know.
It's gross.
Ugh, I don't like that one.
I'm right behind you.
My favorite penny candy is Sour Patch Kids, lemon drops, and jawbreakers.
And all I wanted to do was eat the candy.
I think the main difficulty is going to be making sure that all the different additives that go into the candies don't actually kill the textures of the dessert.
Hey, girl.
How you doing? Apparently breaking the machine.
How about you? Yes.
It's only 25 grand.
You're fine.
You just need to follow the instructions.
Obey the challenge.
We're going to have to make something out of all this candy.
So I want to make this kid friendly kind of.
33 minutes.
I'm done.
You can come grab it.
I have a lot of experience in pastry.
So I was kind of really shocked in the last quickfire challenge when I was not able to get my dish plated.
But this time, I am watching the clock very intently, and in my plan for my dessert, I'm thinking also about my time.
Atomic Fireballs made me think of my mom.
My mom loves Atomic Fireballs, but she can't eat them anymore because she has some health problems.
Come on, come on.
So I decided I was gonna make a spicy coconut jam with some Atomic Fireballs in it.
Do you need any buttercream? I'm good, honey.
Thank you.
Okay.
Let the sweat begin.
I'm really excited about this challenge.
I was denied sugar so much as a child that I think I became a pastry Chef as an act of rebellion.
Some people get tattoos.
I decided to work with chocolate and sugar and butter.
This is revenge on my vegan mother for never letting me go to the candy store.
[Laughs.]
When I hear someone say "penny candy," the first thing that comes to my mind is when I was a kid, we'd eat-- it was called worms and dirt.
It was chocolate pudding and whipped cream, and you'd put gummy worms in it.
They'd be coming out.
It was just, like, this fun thing that would be at kids' birthdays.
It just feels good to let all my tension out.
Everyone, you have five minutes.
Thank you, Gail.
The last thing I have to do is freeze my passion fruit sorbet with some liquid nitrogen, but I didn't have enough nitrogen, and I couldn't get my passion fruit sorbet frozen in time.
Oh, come on.
Ah, for the love of Mike.
Five Four, three Two, one.
Tools down, time's up, everyone.
[Bleep.]
.
The first thing that went through my head was I had taken this chance to do something for my mom and failed.
Seth is having an issue with his sorbet not being cold enough.
And he just starts breaking down.
[Weeps.]
It's really disrupting the kitchen.
I'm feeling emotional as it is.
It's just making me want to cry as well.
Hi, Yigit.
So tell us what you've made and how penny candy comes into the picture here.
I took some red licorice, infused it into my strawberry base, added a little citrus to cut the sweetness.
I call the dessert "strawberries & cream.
" It's definitely got a candy approach, and I really like that.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Heather.
Hi, Heather.
What do we have here? Well, what I did was I did a play on a creamsicle.
So I made a vanilla panna cotta, and on top is a passion fruit gelee.
I used some of the passion fruit candy as a sweetener.
Thanks.
Thank you very much.
Hi.
Let's find out what you made.
Well, I kind of just took everything orange up there-- orange sticks and lollipops-- and I mixed it with some pistachio and mascarpone and cream.
Are you a candy eater? Not really.
The pistachio flavor comes through well.
Excellent.
Hi, Morgan.
Gail.
Tell us what you made today.
Well, it's, um, penny candy on a pedestal.
It's chick-o-stick sable.
Then over the top of that is a salted malted-milk ganache, and the caramel up top is actually a re-pulled banana lollipop.
Great.
Thank you.
Hi, Malika.
Hello.
Tell us your penny-candy creation.
I have a lemon drop and strawberry parfait.
It is a yuzu cream with a little bit of strawberry gelee under it.
And the top has a little bit of strawberry pop rocks.
Are you a candy eater? You know, I am, because I have three small children, so Thanks a lot.
So what I did for you is a browned butter almond financier with macerated strawberries and a 20-year-aged balsamic.
Did you use any actual penny candy in creating this dessert? No, just the flavors You didn't.
Focusing on strawberry.
I'm just curious why you don't like any candy.
Not all candy.
You're a pastry Chef.
[Laughing.]
I know.
Okay.
Thanks a lot.
Hi, Zac.
Hi, Gail.
Chef.
Tell us about your candy creation.
I created a dark chocolate and sour cream ho ho filled with a red hot cream cheese filling and then a warm black licorice pernod and star anise coulis and a little hot tamale whipped cream.
Did you say there was black licorice in here somewhere? Yeah, it's the black licorice pernod and star anise coulis.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Eric, tell us about your dessert.
My dessert today is a malted chocolate pudding, and it has barley malt extract in it, a little bit of butterscotch candy, and some malt balls.
And then we have a soft malt ball cookie to go with it.
What kind of chocolate? I used milk chocolate and cocoa powder.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Erika, what did you make for us? There's strawberry pop rocks on the bottom with a lemon drop cookie, fresh strawberry sliced with a sour lemon gelee.
And pop rocks on the top, so hopefully they're still popping.
These rocks are definitely popping.
Good.
Great.
Thanks, Erika.
Thank you.
I like that worms and dirt at every kid's birthday party.
So I kind of did it a little fancier, and I did chocolate mousse, and there's sour lemon gummies.
And then the crunch part is malt balls and cacao nibs.
And then I did a lemon soda that I made out of lemon drops.
I got the gummy candy in the bottom.
Yeah, me too.
It's kind of fun.
Mm-hmm.
Thank you, Danielle.
Thank you.
Seth, I noticed you had a little problem finishing today.
What happened here? I tried to do a little too much, and I needed 30 more seconds to get a clean canele, but I stand by the flavors, and I think it's gonna taste good.
Well, then, you know what? That's what matters the most to us, so why don't you tell us what you made? I made a whopper chiffon cake with a red hot coconut jam, passion fruit vanilla sorbet, and pistachios.
My mom goes through every day in so much pain, and the only thing in the world she cares about is my happiness.
And I felt like today was an opportunity to give something back to her.
[Crying.]
I can't do this.
I can't do it.
I can't do this.
I can't do this.
I'm not sure what's going on with Seth, and then I realized that Seth was crying because he didn't put his ice cream on the plate.
Hey, man.
Hey.
Breathe, okay.
Hey, stop.
It's fine.
I can't stop.
I know.
But, listen, man.
Listen, man.
You're a badass Chef.
There's a lot of pressure to perform.
And I can understand that anxiety.
But you got to kind of roll with the punches sometimes.
The red hots are for my mom, and she's so sick.
Hey, sweetie, I got to talk to you for a second, 'cause I've done a lot of these competitions.
And I've never won, so [Laughter.]
I'm totally on your team, man.
I am on your team.
It's okay.
[sobbing.]
I don't understand why anyone is against me.
Nobody's against you.
Then why were you saying anything? It's not okay for you to yell at a contestant or anyone.
It's not for you to tell me what's okay.
I'm totally on your team, man.
I am on your team.
It's okay.
[sobbing.]
They're for my mom, and I [Bleep.]
it up.
Hey, no, no, no.
You didn't [Bleep.]
it up.
I [Bleep.]
it up.
You're here.
I'm gonna pull it together.
But I want you to do something for me.
I've done this a lot.
I've never done this.
I have to pull my head out of my ass a lot, okay? All right.
I'm gonna stop.
Okay.
Thank you.
Be tough.
Thank you, Chef.
You know, losing my first quickfire, I did feel bad for him, but I think that you are in a competition.
That is not how you represent yourself.
You've got to get yourself together and move on.
So, Elizabeth, what did you think of our penny-candy creations? I was just really excited to see a lot of colors and a lot of use of different candies.
So who was the least successful today? One of the least successful dishes today, I think, was Heather C.
, just because you didn't really seem to embrace the challenge, and this is a fun candy challenge, and I just didn't see any fun or any candy.
My other least favorite would be Eric, 'cause I felt like I wanted to see a little bit more exploring of the malted candy.
I felt like it was a little one-dimensional.
Who else was your least favorite? The least successful today, unfortunately, is Seth.
I can tell you, Seth, that I have absolutely been in your shoes when I was on Top Chef Masters.
You got to remember that you got to just keep going.
Every day's a different day.
And this is a challenge, and I know you can step up to it.
Thank you.
So who were the three most successful dessert makers today? It was hard to choose.
You guys are a talented group.
Um, but I would say Heather H.
I really liked the way you used a lot of the different acidic citrus candies and played around with sort of highlighting some of those flavors in different layers.
And then, Danielle, I really liked seeing the playfulness with the lemon soda and the straw.
And then also the worm in the dirt kind of theme-- and very successful and a lot of different textures.
Thank you.
I would say I really liked Zac's dessert, mostly because I thought it was a really good cake, and then you used the red hot candy filling, and then what really brought it home for me was that licorice sauce-- and really tasty, really balanced.
Thank you.
I was very, very happy that she mentioned that I did a cake, 'cause I kind of wanted to stick my tongue out to everyone else and be like, "suck it, bitches," because they did mousse.
You can do mousse in ten minutes.
We had an hour, you know.
Like, let's put some, you know, effort into this.
So who had the best dessert today? I would say Danielle.
[Applause.]
Thank you.
Thanks.
Congratulations, Danielle.
Thank you.
That means you have immunity in our next elimination challenge.
It's really nice to have immunity, but at the same time, I'm gonna put my best foot forward.
I'm gonna make something I would normally make if it depended on me going home or not.
James Beard award winner and Top Chef Master veteran Mark Peel just opened a new 1940s-inspired restaurant called the Tar Pit.
It's where we're going to find out about your next challenge.
Head over to the Tar Pit now, and I'll see you there.
Thank you.
Wow.
Oh, nice.
Hey.
Well, hello.
All: Hello.
Welcome to the Tar Pit.
Mark Peel is the owner of the Tar Pit and a very well-known Chef here in Los Angeles.
Hello, hello, hello.
Hey.
All: Hi.
Hi, Chefs.
All: Hi, Gail.
It's good to see you.
Great to see you too.
Thanks so much for having us.
We chose to come to a high-end bar like this, because for your elimination challenge, you're going to have to create a dish inspired by a great cocktail.
And for this challenge, you're going behind the bar to shop for your ingredients.
There's only a limited amount of items behind the bar.
And that is where my stress is starting.
You've got a different kind of pantry behind the bar.
But you're gonna have to pull the flavors from the bar in creating your desserts.
You'll have just two minutes each behind the bar to shop for ingredients and then three hours back at the Just Desserts kitchen to prepare your cocktail dessert for our judges, as well as 25 discerning barflies.
So Chef Peel has a handful of coasters with numbers on them, which is going to designate the order that we can go and shop behind the bar.
So we're gonna now go one at a time.
Just reveal your numbers.
Yigit.
Erika.
Malika.
Heather C.
Eric? All: Ooh.
[Laughs.]
[quacks.]
I'm really happy to go first.
I totally feel like I have an advantage.
Usuay I'm always last.
All right, Eric, let's get the party started.
Your time starts now.
All right.
Let's go.
I know exactly what I want to do.
I'm really just lookg for pineapple.
Don't get greedy.
I'm cooking for 30.
So I just grab absolutely all of it.
Does anybody want pineapple? Erika, your time starts now.
Mm-hmm, I smell Margarita.
Ha ha.
First thing I think about is how I can incorporate salt into my dessert, because I like margaritas.
I'm seeing that the citrus is starting to disappear, and I'm starting to worry and panic a little bit.
Yigit, your time starts now.
Come on, Yigit.
Go, Yigit.
What you making? A cosmo, girl? Something.
Whatever.
You're not getting any.
Danielle.
I am watching each one go behind the bar and thinking, "don't touch that bottle.
Don't touch that bottle.
" I've got a cocktail in mind, and so far, so good.
Heather C.
Morgan.
Stone-faced.
Ooh.
Jack and coke, baby.
Zac.
Come on, Lady Gaga.
Do your thing.
Yeah, girl.
[Laughs.]
I grab the benedictine, which is perfect, because benedictine has all these great aromatics in it.
Do you need anything specific? There's nothing left.
I see some tarragon.
The licorice-type flavor in the tarragon will be perfect.
You shop with so much grace.
Only in the liquor aisle.
[laughter.]
And then, you know, I have some free time, so I dance a little bit.
I'm like a kid in a candy store back here.
Am I allowed to do shots? Tim.
Come on, old man.
It's like an alcoholic's nightmare.
[Laughs.]
I had this cocktail called the plantation.
All right.
And it's with basil and a rum.
It's delicious.
Go, mama.
"Go, mama.
" What's left? I'm gonna take that one.
Seth.
Don't break anything while you're back there.
I want to make a greyhound dessert.
A greyhound is basically grapefruit and either vodka or gin.
Pink grapefruit.
Pink grapefruit somewhere? I think he just stuck that up his nose.
No pink grapefruit.
The reason I wanted to do a greyhound was because it's refreshing and sweet, so it's kind of like a dessert anyhow, and I felt like if I couldn't do that, I couldn't do anything.
It's not back here.
Rethink.
You got 40 seconds to rethink it.
How am I supposed to make a greyhound without grapefruit juice? Just deal with it.
Ten seconds.
You just got to make a new version, man.
Go, Seth, go.
Go, Seth, go.
Let the creative juices flow.
Go, Seth, go.
Zero.
Bunch of [Bleep.]
haters.
I don't understand why anyone is against me when I'm behind there.
Both: Nobody's against you.
Then why were you saying anything? Oh, lord.
I'm broke.
My mother has over $100,000 in medical bills.
I'm not here for fun.
I'm here to save my life.
Hey, not okay.
It's not okay for you to yell at your contestants or anyone.
It's not for you to tell me what's okay.
Seth, you're being an ass[Bleep.]
.
You know, I could deal with most of this stuff in a normal restaurant scenario, you know, but when it's you have no citrus and now you need to make a cocktail for $100,000, it's a lot more stressful, you know.
I'm a little bit embarrassed.
He should have just gone with the flow and decide something real quick.
I mean, that's part of the challenge, is having to adapt to what you're left with.
All right, Chefs, we got to move on.
I got to get this joint open.
[Laughter.]
We'll see you back here for service.
Blast chiller's off.
It seems to be off.
All I see is Seth running his laps around the kitchen.
It was like someone put a flaming hot poker up his ass.
All right.
For the elimination challenge, we're to take any cocktail and create a dessert around it, using the ingredients from the Tar Pit Restaurant for your main ingredients, as well as what's in the Top Chef pantry.
Isn't very much.
No.
I don't want that.
Glucose, glucose.
Not having recipes and having to think on your toes Three hours isn't a lot of time.
It's really not a lot of time.
You really have to have a lot of confidence in yourself and your skills and your techniques, 'cause if you even just break down, I think, for one moment, that could send you home.
Oh, come on.
I'm working on a pineapple upside-down cake.
The drink that I'm inspired by is a simple bourbon infused with pineapple.
But I'm looking up, and I'm noticing that people are, like, doing fancy things and infusing different flavors.
And I'm always like [sighs.]
I don't know what they're doing.
I'm a baker, and I want to rise to the top.
Duh.
You know.
I'm going to do a black and blue gimlet.
So it's gonna be traditional flavors of a gimlet with the addition of blueberries and blackberries.
I think today I still feel emotionally exhausted, between the crying spell and then the yelling with Yigit.
So today I'm just gonna take it easy and stay out of trouble.
Going around.
Cooking is all I've done most of my life.
You know, I've been thrown into a four-star kitchen as a sous Chef when I was 24 years old.
I feel like I have a tremendous amount of experience.
I have the talent.
I have the technique.
And I really want to show my fellow competitors what they have to go up against.
Ooh.
I want to taste it.
What is it? The drink that inspired me for the dessert is called the plantation.
Nice.
Not too strong, though? Not strong enough? It has basil, so I took the basil and infused it into a custard.
It's a custard cooled, served cold? You need more, 'cause it's gonna-- remember, when it's cold-- I don't have any.
That's all I got.
I don't have quite enough basil, so I'm gonna grind the whole thing, seeds and all.
I'm making a blood-orange mojito cake.
But I feel like the dish is lacking that note of acidity that it needs.
It's too sweet, 'cause I have a white-chocolate mousse.
Maybe a glaze with Powdered sugar.
And rum? Yeah, rum and maybe a little honey.
Hey, Chefs.
What's going on? All: Hi, Johnny.
Hey, Yigit.
Chef, what's up? What are you working on? I'm gonna make a negroni creamsicle.
And I'm gonna make a campari-based citrus coating with kappa carrageenan and a little thai basil ice cream.
Fan of cocktails? Like every Chef, I'm sure.
Yes, indeed, especially after a hard day.
Good luck to you.
Thank you, Chef.
Cheers.
So far, Yigit has felt pretty confident.
You know, he looks like he's organized.
He looks like he's ready for these challenges.
Whether or not he can actually pull it together and succeed, we'll just have to wait and see.
I think my style is entirely different than Yigit's.
I got the basics.
He's got, like, the "so advanced," but I don't think he learned the basics.
I have a lot of experience, so we'll see what happens.
Hey, Tim.
Hi, Johnny.
What's going on, Buddy? It's all good.
What have we got going on here? I have this little cocktail I love called plantation.
Have you got any problems so far? They're not out of the oven yet, so we'll see.
We'll know soon, right? That's why I'm gonna go.
See you later.
Pleasure.
So the two ingredients that Tim really latched on to behind the bar were basil and rum-- you know, two really great ingredients.
I know he's adding alcohol directly to his custard, and a lot of times that can change the way it bakes, so I'm interested in seeing how it sets up.
My man Seth.
Hey, how are you, Chef? Nice to see you.
How are we holding up, Buddy? I only got one pint of blueberries, and I needed 16 ounces, so I had to use a little blue food coloring, unfortunately.
Uh-oh.
So I'm making some surprise textures.
I'm going to do a juniper gelee, agar agar locust bean gum gelatin, and then I'm gonna have some blackberry fizzy tabs.
And then there's gonna be a couple other things that I can't remember right now, and hopefully it's all gonna come together.
Sounds like you got a lot going on.
Take a deep breath and get to it.
Thank you very much.
Good luck, man.
Yes, thank you.
Hello, Erika.
Hi, Chef, how are you? How are we doing? Pretty good.
Why don't you tell me about what you're gonna make? So I made a Tequila mousse with orange and lime.
And I'm gonna make a Margarita bombe.
Well, I happen to love margaritas too, so I can't wait to try it.
Awesome.
Thanks, Chef.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Erika's basic idea of using a brulee is simple, but she's adding different layers and textures to it, so it actually makes it a much more complicated dessert.
19 minutes! 19 minutes.
Right behind, please.
Right behind.
Working in a kitchen with Seth is a little hectic.
Open flame.
He is the kind of person that I stay away from.
I'm like, "seriously?" Blast chiller's off.
It seems to be o.
Just close the door.
It'll start again.
All is see is Seth, you know, running his laps around the kitchen.
I mean, like, it was like someone put a flaming hot poker up his ass.
Very hot.
Very hot.
Watch out, crazy man.
And it's really nerve-racking.
I can't find my cake.
Does anyone see a really blueberry-colored cake anywhere? No? Blueberry cake? All right, I found it.
I found it.
Seth is so mentally draining.
I mean, he's just taking away from us focusing on what we're here to do.
Five minutes! Five minutes.
You want me to wrap this? Yeah.
And then I have my basil ice cream in there too.
I'm definitely stressed.
It's a lot to get done.
I feel bad asking you for help.
I may have gone overboard a little bit-- a little bit too complicated.
But, you know, I guess I'll have to wait and see what the judges think.
Minute and a half.
Oh, my Jesus.
Time! Whew.
[bleep.]
.
Nice work, guys.
Good job, everybody.
It's always a pleasure.
It's not a pleasure to be in the bottom three.
No.
That's not a pleasure.
[Laughs.]
Oh, my God.
Seth really made an embarrassment of himself at the Tar Pit in front of Chef Peel.
And there's some tension between Seth and us.
I think we're a little bit dumbfounded by his behavior.
I think you need to apologize to all of us.
I'd like to apologize.
We all have some issues.
I can do that.
I can do that too.
I'm not quite sure what's gonna happen next.
I'm actually a little bit nervous.
I'll try to make it up to you.
That's all I can really do.
[Scoffs.]
I don't want you to make it up to me.
I want you to just treat us like decent people.
I'm gonna try harder starting tomorrow.
I understand it.
I feel [Bleep.]
humiliated, you know.
Seth feels like he let his mom down, but we all have issues.
My dad passed away from lung cancer just a few years ago, and somehow I actually managed to pull through.
You have to understand that, no matter what's going on in your personal life, you have no idea what each of us are going on-- you know, have happening outside of this.
Mm-hmm.
We could have trauma.
You have no idea, and it's very selfish of you.
Yep.
I'm truly sorry for everything that you're going through, but you have no idea about everyone else's personal business.
I agree with everything you just said, and I hope I can, you know, start making up for it tomorrow.
That's all I can do.
Regardless of everything that he's done, I still want to give the guy the benefit of the doubt and, you know, hope that it'll be good for him too.
You know, because if he's miserable, it's not gonna be good for anyone.
And you let me know anything that I can do to help, you know.
At this point, distance would be greatly appreciated.
All right.
Thank you.
You got it.
[Clatter.]
Oh, my God.
[gasps.]
Are you kidding me? I look over, and I see my chocolate squares on the floor.
I didn't do it.
I didn't do it.
So the challenge is to serve a dessert that is inspired by a cocktail, and you only have one hour to plate 30 desserts.
Let's do this, ladies.
So I walk into Chef Mark Peel's kitchen at the Tar Pit, and it's a small space for all of us to prep and work together.
Watch your back.
It's gonna be staggered.
It's gonna be three Chefs plating up at a time for the judges and 25 diners.
Coming through, guys.
So it's gonna be interesting.
My gelee is gonna be harder than yours.
Yeah.
I'm really stressed when I start to prep for service, because this is the first time I've ever done it in my life.
I got 20 more minutes left, and I just realize that I'm, like, one dessert short.
So I have to rethink my plating.
I have a full sphere, and I was going to serve it that way, but now I'm gonna cut it in half, so then they can see everything that's inside.
And I don't think they're gonna expect that at all.
[Alarm sounds.]
Time.
Time! Stop it.
Are you taking mine? All right, judges are always gonna be on this side of the plate.
I'm feeling good about my cocktail dessert.
But I'm a little nervous about the salt.
I want to be in the top three, and I want to kick ass and win.
Hi, Chefs.
All: Hi.
I'd like to introduce you to your judges for today's challenge.
Of course, you all know head judge Johnny Iuzzini.
And yesterday you met Elizabeth Falkner.
And I'd like to welcome a familiar face, one of our permanent judges, Chef Hubert Keller.
And say hello again to Chef Mark Peel, and finally Daphne Brogdon, Mark's wife and business partner.
All: Hello.
So, Erika, we're gonna start with you.
Tell us what cocktail dessert you've made from behind the Tar Pit bar.
My dessert is a top-shelf Margarita.
My bombe has a lime cookie with a Tequila mousse and grand marnier creme brulee.
Also, just to let you know, there is salt, because it is a Margarita.
I was really inspired by the ginger-lime cocktail, and so I did a lime and lemon curd tart.
There's toasted coconut on top, and then I made a rum sabayon and candied kumquats.
Well, I was inspired by a strange drink which consisted of, like, bourbon and pineapple.
What I picked from the bar was Kentucky bourbon and pineapple, and I made a pineapple upside-down cake.
Thank you so much, Chefs.
Thanks.
What did you think of Erika's Margarita bombe? I loved the subtlety of it.
It is a little bit bland.
And then you get the salt, and you go-- and your mouth goes, "oh.
" I really feel Erika embraced the cocktail flavor.
She really took a Margarita and really transformed it into a dessert.
Oh, salt.
I just crunched.
An actual piece of salt? Yeah.
Yeah.
Tell me what you thought of Danielle's dessert.
I would have liked to have seen the mingue torte, personally, 'cause I just really like a little more caramelization going on.
This doesn't resemble a cocktail to me at all.
I have no idea where she went.
I can't even figure out which alcohol is in this.
There's a little rum in the sabayon, and I think that's it.
It's a good dessert.
I think the texture is well done.
But it's true.
It misses a little bit-- part of the shine and dry when it comes to a cocktail.
It was so delicious and refreshing.
I just loved the lime zesty taste.
Visually, even though Eric's dish was the simplest, to me, it had the most flavor of the three that we tasted by far.
I had to stop myself from completely gobbling up Eric's upside-down cake.
I thought it was delicious.
I really enjoyed the cake texture a lot.
And I did get a lot of bourbon flavor, so the aftertaste in my mouth is like a cocktail.
Oh, my God.
I'm not gonna get this done.
I am so [Bleep.]
.
Let me help, man.
At this point, I just want to get all the elements onto the plate for the judges, even if it doesn't look 100%.
And it just breaks my heart.
Seth, one thing, do you mind getting my basil ice cream out of the freezer? Is it green? Yes.
This is the freezer.
Oh, oh, oh.
Basil, basil.
And Seth was, ironically enough, kind of remorseful, and he was trying to help get ice creams on the plate.
Here you go.
Time? Three minutes.
[Bleep.]
! I got three minutes to scoop 36 scoops of sorbet? This is bad.
Anyone have a scoop I could borrow? Yigit.
Thank you.
[Alarm sounds.]
When the timer goes off, I feel utterly heartbroken, because I know that my plates didn't look as beautiful as I know they were gonna look, so I'm just worried that, you know, not having finished is gonna definitely count against me.
Okay, Chefs, queue up.
That puts me on the bottom three.
You're not gonna be the only one.
We're gonna start with you, Yigit.
I translated a negroni.
I used campari to make a campari and blood-orange agar agar.
And then for the creamsicle part, I made a citrus-scented vanilla panna cotta.
And I paired that with a sweet basil ice cream, which I think just kind of ties everything together.
My favorite cocktail on the earth, it might possibly be the simplest-- okay, so we've got a cola-spiced dickel's whiskey cake.
And that's being served over a coke fluid gel and a Dickel's Tennessee gelee.
Great.
Enjoy.
I decided to do a gingerbread cake with a el Dorado 15-year rum caramel sauce and then garnished just like the Jamaican firefly with some candied ginger as well.
Thanks, Chefs.
All: Thank you.
Elizabeth, did you like Yigit's dessert? What comes together for me the most is all of this color on the plate.
It looks like a fun, cocktail-themed dessert.
How do you make ice cream out of basil? Oh, see, I'm really into that.
I like it too.
The ice cream, you know, unfortunately was a little bit melted.
That's a timing issue, so that's, again, that's something he has to think about when he plates.
The campari is one of my favorite flavors, so of course I enjoyed that.
Tell me what you thought of Morgan's whiskey cake.
What I really liked in that dish was the gelee.
It suddenly pops in your mouth like a cocktail, right? He did a great job.
I just wish there was one more thing on that cake.
I found it very dry too.
It didn't really seem like a dessert.
I was really looking forward to trying Heather C's dessert.
She's got a lot of great Spice in there.
It's a really delicious gingerbread.
It doesn't really all come together the way I think she wanted it to.
I was actually really excited about having lime in the middle of it, but I didn't get any lime.
15 minutes.
Are you using this freezer behind you? Are you gonna use this? No.
Seth is near my station, and there's all this action going on right next to me.
Right behind, right behind, right behind.
It gets on my nerves.
It's just like, come on.
[Clatter.]
Oh, are you okay? Yeah, yeah, just dropping [Bleep.]
like an idiot.
Seth is going into his freak-out mode.
I'm running really short on time.
I don't think I'm gonna finish, and I think I'm gonna go home in the bottom three.
As much as he pisses me off, as much as I bitch about him, I can't watch someone go down like that.
Do you need help? Yes.
Just throw it on a plate.
Just start-- or if you can set up plates for me somewhere, I'm just gonna chuck everything on with no particular order.
We have nine minutes, guys.
Nine minutes.
18, 20, 22, 24.
Am I there? You're there.
Let me do a couple extra just in case.
[Bleep.]
Slop shop [Bleep.]
House.
Zac helps me out, which is really great.
He's helping me get stuff on a plate.
And now I'm done.
Can I help you? Can I do anything? I can put meringue sticks.
Can I help? I'm good.
Sometimes you are gonna need help from other people.
And if I could help someone else to complete their dish, that's what I'm gonna do.
Who else? I'm gonna come help you right now.
What can I do? What can I do, Chef? Seth, stay by the time clock.
Give us a countdown, please.
I'm doing it.
I'm trying to get to it.
I'm trying to get to the clock.
You have four seconds, four seconds.
[Alarm sounds.]
Ah! I feel that I have a beautiful dish that's gone out, but I'm really concerned about my balance in the flavors.
I am concerned that this dish might send me home.
Seth, we're gonna start with you.
Great.
Tell us about your dessert.
The blueberry gimlet.
Of course you have blueberries, raspberries, hendrick's gin, tanqueray gin, lemon juice, lime juice, and soda.
And the rest is up to you to find.
So I did a blood-orange and blackberry mojito.
I have a cake soaked with white rum, blood orange, and then I have a white-chocolate mousse infused with some fresh cream.
Well, my inspiration was a white Russian.
I added some chocolate into it and coffee and a Kahlua and a little bit of vodka, just to give it a little bit of a refreshing bite to cut off with the custard.
Great.
Thank you so much.
Thanks, Chefs.
I think that Malika's dessert was one of the least successful for me.
I got a lot of the fresh-mint flavor, but I didn't get the effect of rum or blood orange.
Malika's dessert reminded me like one of those desserts that has that sugary icing on top.
And if you eat the whole piece, you pass out.
I think Malika embraced the challenge from the cocktail sampling.
I just think it was very heavy-handed.
Heather's dessert, I must say, there was too much going on, I think, between the layers.
I think she overthought it and felt like she had to keep adding to it.
I think if she would have simplified and had a couple less components that that dessert would have been a greater success.
Seth indicated there were some surprises in here.
What did you find? First of all, it's a blue cake.
So that's kind of a little shocking, 'cause blue in the pastry world is usually a faux pas.
I love gin, and it doesn't taste like it, you know.
And I just-- I needed more gin.
He used two different gins, and I really didn't get either of those gins.
2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 [Clatter.]
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Are you kidding me? I didn't do it.
I didn't do it.
There's still some that are on the acetate that you can choose to use.
I can't use 'em.
I look over, and I see all of my chocolate squares on the floor.
What happened? I was standing right here, and I heard it fall.
I wasn't even moving.
I swear on my life.
Are you--are you joking? I swear I don't know what happened, man.
I swear I don't know.
I didn't move.
Did you get your judges' plates done? Nope.
Those were the ones I was saving for the judges.
But that's fine.
Thanks.
And instead of getting out of the way I got to come back in here and clean.
He decides to hang around while I'm plating.
Watch your back, honey.
Go, go, go.
Step on me.
I don't care.
Oh, don't worry.
Judges first.
Just finish your judges' plates.
It's okay.
You know what? It's fine.
I'm fine.
I'm totally, totally fine.
[Alarm sounds.]
[Bleep.]
! I missed one, one tuile.
Tuile in hands.
Missed one.
How come I didn't get a tuile? Where's your tuile? I went out of my way to help someone in this competition, and it ends up biting me in the ass.
They knock over my stuff, and I end up with incomplete plates.
Zac, we're gonna start with you.
Tell us what you made today.
Essentially, it's my take on a jager bomb.
We have a dark-chocolate malt cake, which I've filled with a benedictine cremeux.
On top of it, we have a lime pallet.
A tarragon tuile finishes it off to bring out more of those aromatics.
I have a cocktail that I really love, and it's called the plantation.
I have actually a basil pudding underneath some orange, some kumquat, and a lime granita.
Thank you both so much.
Both: Thank you.
I think v really grabbed the bull by the horns on this one.
You know, he took such a low-brow cocktail and really brought some elegance to it.
I loved the whole concept of it a lot.
I'm not sure if I really am getting the full effect of a cocktail.
It kind of reminds me of, like, a cake that hasn't fully cooked yet.
I tasted, like, one big, huge shot of alcohol, and I was like, "whoa.
" What did you think of Tim Nugent's plantation dessert? I think this is the second dish that Tim has presented to us in a bowl.
And I don't know if that's his comfort zone or not, but I think he's got to kind of get away from that a little bit, because in this case, it worked against him.
But also it's kind of a mess when you start digging into it too.
It becomes like scrambled eggs in a soup.
[Laughs.]
So it's not pleasing to look at while you're eating it, you know.
Mine looks the messiest of all.
But, you know, I really-- actually I do enjoy the flavors.
It just really left a lot to be desired.
I totally gave one of the judges a burnt tuile.
That's all right.
I had two rings to put on, and I didn't.
I am worried that, since my dish is incomplete, the judges aren't gonna get the full profile of it.
This could land me in the bottom three.
I made myself vulnerable in front of you, and now you're all taking advantage of it.
I am so over this.
You guys want to play cards or something? We could use that to make a deck of cards.
It's nothing against anyone.
I just want to sit in silence, please.
Seth is a rather intense individual.
I'm sorry.
I just got to play with something.
I'm feeling really antsy right now.
I hope Seth can find his self-control within his passion.
This is my anti-camera helmet I'm gonna build.
[Laughs.]
I think people are just really tired over Seth and his emotional outbursts and his selfish behavior.
And I feel like he needs to stop being a child, pull his [Bleep.]
together, and move on.
[Laughter.]
You cannot see my emotions.
[Laughs.]
Judges table makes me nervous, but it's just that waiting time.
But I feel good in my heart that I'm gonna have a good dessert.
Here you go.
Hello, Gail.
Hi.
Hi, Gail.
We'd like to see Erika Yigit And Eric.
Thanks.
I'm happy for Eric, because I think he's somebody who, like, needs it now in order to survive another day.
You don't know.
This could be the bottom three for all you know.
But I tasted his dish, and it's not bottom three.
And I tasted her dish.
And I loved everything that, you know-- I invite you-- I invite you to speak your mind all the time, and I'm never gonna judge you just for saying the truth.
You can say whatever you want.
I'm just saying-- so I phrase it in the wrong way? Let her talk.
Let her talk.
Please? Let her finish.
You interrupt people.
You're so hard on me.
You're so hard on me.
No, but you don't let people finish talking.
If you listen and you take in-- I'm actually getting really angry right now, so Oh, my God.
I am.
I'm trying not to.
I'm trying not to.
But I'm getting [Bleep.]
Pissed off now.
At what I'm saying? Seriously? You guys are incredible, man.
I made myself vulnerable in front of you, and now you're all taking advantage of it.
I am so over this.
I was trying to be supportive of Eric.
Okay.
Let's stop.
How can that be evil? Let's just talk about something else, 'cause it's just not-- we know where this is gonna go.
Please don't stew.
I'm not gonna last one more elimination if I let these people get in my head.
Everyone saw how I can cook when my head is on straight.
I was a stronger cook before I was a nicer guy, so I'm gonna be a [Bleep.]
, and I'm gonna cook, and I'm gonna win this whole [Bleep.]
.
And you can all suck it.
I don't [Bleep.]
Care anymore.
All: Whoa! That's it.
Chefs, today we asked you to get behind the bar and choose ingredients that would normally be used in a cocktail and turn them into an unforgettable dessert.
Yours were the three best desserts of the day.
[Laughs.]
Yes.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
You can breathe now.
Oh, my gosh.
[Laughter.]
Erika, tell us about how you came to your dessert today.
Well, my favorite drink is a Margarita.
So I just wanted to keep it clean and simple, and I love Tequila.
And I put that on the plate along with some salt.
Erika, I thought it was aesthetically beautiful.
It was really well plated.
You know, I tasted the alcohol in every bite.
It was well balanced.
Thank you.
Also, the Tequila sauce-- I thought it was beautiful.
Yeah, I liked how it was clear too Yeah.
Yeah.
With the vanilla specks in it, but just a clear sauce.
I always like that kind of surprise.
Eric.
Pineapple upside-down cake with bourbon.
Eric, I think it was well executed, I must say.
The consistency of the cake was really nice and moist.
I think the caramelization on the pineapples really, really sticked out, so I think it's probably one of the desserts that the four of us, we almost finished the plate, so that was a good sign.
Thank you very much.
But also I think, to be in the Top Chef: Just Desserts category, you're gonna have to, you know, think about the aesthetic here and there, so This today was the first time I've ever done plated service in my life.
It was just very overwhelming for me.
Yigit, tell us about how you came to your dessert today.
Um, negronis I love, so I wanted to compare something with campari in kind of a refreshing, creamy idea, so, hence, I used a panna cotta.
And, like, being here right now is priceless, so thank you so much.
Well, thank you.
We all were obviously very impressed.
We loved the flavors too.
I thought you had a beautiful, colorful interpretation of a cocktail as a dessert.
I also liked how cold it was.
It actually made me think of a cocktail because of the chill factor on it.
Thank you very much.
What I really liked about it is the consistency of the panna cotta, the creaminess when you take it out with the spoon, so that was really well done.
Elizabeth, as our guest judge, please announce our winner.
The Chef who did the best job of taking a cocktail and interpreting it into a fantastic dessert was Erika.
[laughs.]
Oh, gosh.
Congratulations, Erika.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
So this is my first win.
I'm feeling good about it.
This is starting to feel like the game has started, you know.
Watch out, world, here comes sassy mama.
Now I have to ask you to send back three of your colleagues.
Thank you all.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I don't consider myself a competitive person, but once I get into the game, I'm a bulldog.
I won.
[Cheers and applause.]
They would like to see Malika, Tim, and Seth.
Unfortunately, the three of you made the least satisfying desserts.
[Exhales deeply.]
Tim, you had the basil-rum citrus plantation dessert.
Was the end result how you envisioned it? Yeah.
I just was resembling a cocktail that I like to drink, that's all.
It's funny you say that you wanted to resemble a cocktail, because five minutes into eating it, it really became a soupy mess.
It was bruleed, which I think also kind of went away.
So there was that line in between to keep the citrus wet from hitting the custard, but after 30 of 'em, I think it was a little wet by the time they got to the table.
What drives me crazy is you probably have one of the sharpest palates of all the Chefs here.
Your flavors are almost spot on every time.
You just have a very difficult time putting it all together.
Seth.
Yes.
I know that you had a bit of a rocky start getting here.
Yeah.
[clears throat.]
Tell us why you think we were unhappy with your dessert today.
It was a bad dish, and I won't lie and say I stand behind it.
I made too many components.
I messed 'em all up.
And I probably should have just left some off the plate.
And I think at the point, I honestly was just trying to make it look soignee.
It seems like you're a little too harsh on yourself on that one, I must say.
No, no, no, I must say.
The thing about the cake itself, the blueberry cake, right, I think there was no really-- we couldn't see any blueberry.
It was a blue cake.
You're a smart guy.
You're a smart pastry Chef.
Thank you.
I think you're trying to do too much too fast.
You need to pick a flavor, pick a goal, and work towards it.
If I stay, I mean, I'm definitely gonna try to take that advice to heart.
You said that you just couldn't focus during the challenge.
What was going on? Um, I mean, the reason I couldn't focus is just because of the ridiculous emotional breakdown I had in the quickfire.
I would have loved to have just, you know, gone home, but I've always been taught that the show must go on.
If you got to stay here, how can we be sure that that's not gonna happen again? I honestly can't promise that.
Malika Let's talk about your mojito cake.
I chose the mojito, because I really love the combination and the balance of flavors.
And I know that my dish really lacked that.
I think, Malika, where it really went wrong is giving us such a big piece of cake, right, and I must say I have a sweet tooth, and I love sweets, but that one was really sweet, yeah, so You know, realistically, I wanted something airy and very tart in the middle, and I didn't complete that.
Malika, this is the second time that time has become your enemy.
What do you think is going wrong in the kitchen? Why is this happening? With the challenge today, I was trying to backtrack and fix what bothered me about the dish.
But what I really should have done is change my plan and done something different.
Okay, we'll call you back here when we're ready.
Thank you.
We don't know.
[chuckles.]
Seth did 11 different things, I think he pointed out to us.
Maybe eight of which actually got on the plate.
Right.
When you think in normal circumstance, right, for 25 people, 11 items, it's suicide.
It also really didn't make the cocktail.
It was just so scattered, really, all over the plate, so Challenge after challenge, Tim has really shown great flavor combinations.
Yeah, you can't really deny it, except it just, after a bite, completely collapsed on me, and I couldn't get past that look of a curdled soup.
Honestly, I think he never did that dessert before, and probably, instead of admitting it, maybe that was a mistake-- he should just stick to it.
And I don't think that he would serve that in his restaurant.
And then there was Malika's dish, her mojito cake.
I really wasn't a fan of the dish.
I thought it was too sweet.
I couldn't really find the elements that she had described.
I think, at least, Malika, she admitted that she was not happy about the dessert, right? I think Malika's having a really hard time adapting to what these challenges call for, and that worries me a lot.
Well, I think it's pretty clear which way the ax is gonna fall tonight.
It shouldn't be too complicated.
Let's bring them out here.
You each are here for the same reason-- failure to change when problems arise.
Tim, your flavor combination was great.
But once we tried to eat it, it became a bowl of scrambled eggs floating in soup.
Malika, the dessert you envisioned in your mind unfortunately did not translate to the dish.
Seth, just because you have 50 techniques in your arsenal doesn't mean you should use 50 techniques in one single dish.
Gail.
Tim, your dessert just didn't measure up.
Please pack your tools and go.
I'm a little shocked to be going home maybe this early.
I liked the dish, and I thought it went really well with the challenge.
This won't change anything I've done in the last 20 years, so I'll stick to the same kind of style.
All: No! Tim! What? No.
Bye.
You're kidding.
No! [Applause.]
Thank you.
Pleasure.
Pleasure.
This whole experience for Just Desserts, it's overwhelming.
It's exciting.
It's nerve-racking.
But I met some fabulous people, and I have no regrets at all.
Next time on Top Chef: Just Desserts All: So come on, all you Chefs, and bake, bake, bake.
You'll be throwing a bake sale.
[Cheers and applause.]
Frickin' chaos.
Hot! Shaking.
Shaking.
Did you take all the peanut butter? Yes.
It's [Bleep.]
Sabotage time? Hey.
I see you shaking the [Bleep.]
Table.
It's driving me crazy.
You're what? I'm leaving.
Seth has already made it clear that he can't interact with children, or he'll cuss too much.
Have you been snorting buttercream? You could almost taste the resentment in her cookie.
I [Bleep.]
Hate this room.
I smell something burning.
I probably haven't made a cupcake since I was in home economics.
I am just freaking out.
I'm not able to plate the dessert.
Oh, my God.
First time in front of the judges, and Mr.
Chocolate himself, Jacques Torres.
I don't think that's the most decadent dessert.
Don't stress.
I do get anxiety about sleep.
I'm thinking, "you're not here to look pretty.
" Just pick a bed, get to it.
Some people are just gonna be a huge pain in the butt.
And the winner is Heather.
Oh, you're kidding.
Tania, your dessert just didn't measure up.
Now 11 pastry Chefs remain to compete for a feature in Food & Wine magazine, a showcase at the annual Pebble Beach Food & Wine festival, a German-engineered, sport-injected Buick Regal, and $100,000 furnished by Godiva Chocolatier.
Who has the creativity, the skill, and the drive to win Top Chef: Just Desserts? Top Chef: Just Desserts 1x02 Cocktail With a Twist Seth and I immediately formed a quick bond here in the house.
Yo, can you throw me my hat, dude, if you see it somewhere? We probably have more in common than any other cooks in the house.
We like a lot of the same Chefs, and we're both heterosexual males.
How do you shave with no shaving cream? That's [Bleep.]
painful.
It's the skin sensitivity, man.
I'll break out.
Really? Will you make me a coffee? Say it again.
Will you make me a coffee, please? Absolutely.
I'putting my order in.
I thought you said, "do you want to go golfing?" So now we're down to 11 Chefs in the house, and I'm kind of the go-to mama.
What's the coffee situation, big mama? There you go.
Oh, no, really? It's just that easy? It's that easy.
It could be I'm a little older.
I've had a lot of kitchens.
I've had a lot of employees.
I play that kind of motherly role.
So you're ready to rock? I'm R.
T.
R.
[Line ringing.]
Hello.
Hello? Mom? The reason I'm always striving to become a better pastry Chef is for my parents.
My mom has had just a bad run of physical surgeries and really bad luck.
How's your rehab coming? Just tell me quickly.
Are you feeling better or worse? If I didn't, you know, care about her and worry about her so much and just love her so much, I wouldn't have the passion to cook.
And I hope that she just understands that I need to win this for her.
I love you so much.
I love you so much.
And tell dad I love him, and I'm thinking about you guys, okay? All right.
Love you.
Bye-bye.
Okay, guys, let's go.
Okay.
So we walk into the kitchen, and the first thing I actually see is Elizabeth Falkner.
She is one of my idols.
And it's probably a few minutes before I even realize that there's a whole wall of candy behind her.
Hello, Chefs.
All: Hi, Gail.
I'd like to introduce you to your judge for this quickfire challenge.
She's the owner of San Francisco's famous Citizen Cake Patisserie as well as Orson Restaurant, acclaimed pastry Chef, Top Chef judge, and, of course, Top Chef Master, Elizabeth Falkner.
[Cheers and applause.]
Hello, Chefs.
Elizabeth Falkner is probably the coolest pastry Chef there is.
You don't even want to be her friend.
Like, you just want to be her.
I'm sure you all have fond memories of being kids in a candy store.
Well, for your quickfire challenge, you're going to be creating a dish that celebrates penny candy.
I didn't eat a lot of candy when I was growing up.
I would say I was more of a chocolate lover.
So I'm a little nervous about what I'm planning to do with it.
So I know we make a lot of things from scratch, but here we're asking you to come up with some things using already premanufactured candies.
And this is challenging, because there's already different colors and flavors inherently in these candies.
I want people to see what pastry Chefs are capable of doing.
I want some kick-ass desserts.
Oy.
The winner will get immunity in our next elimination challenge.
You have one hour to create your penny-candy masterpiece.
You can use as many or as few flavors as you want.
And your time starts now.
I've got so much candy in my mouth.
I know.
It's gross.
Ugh, I don't like that one.
I'm right behind you.
My favorite penny candy is Sour Patch Kids, lemon drops, and jawbreakers.
And all I wanted to do was eat the candy.
I think the main difficulty is going to be making sure that all the different additives that go into the candies don't actually kill the textures of the dessert.
Hey, girl.
How you doing? Apparently breaking the machine.
How about you? Yes.
It's only 25 grand.
You're fine.
You just need to follow the instructions.
Obey the challenge.
We're going to have to make something out of all this candy.
So I want to make this kid friendly kind of.
33 minutes.
I'm done.
You can come grab it.
I have a lot of experience in pastry.
So I was kind of really shocked in the last quickfire challenge when I was not able to get my dish plated.
But this time, I am watching the clock very intently, and in my plan for my dessert, I'm thinking also about my time.
Atomic Fireballs made me think of my mom.
My mom loves Atomic Fireballs, but she can't eat them anymore because she has some health problems.
Come on, come on.
So I decided I was gonna make a spicy coconut jam with some Atomic Fireballs in it.
Do you need any buttercream? I'm good, honey.
Thank you.
Okay.
Let the sweat begin.
I'm really excited about this challenge.
I was denied sugar so much as a child that I think I became a pastry Chef as an act of rebellion.
Some people get tattoos.
I decided to work with chocolate and sugar and butter.
This is revenge on my vegan mother for never letting me go to the candy store.
[Laughs.]
When I hear someone say "penny candy," the first thing that comes to my mind is when I was a kid, we'd eat-- it was called worms and dirt.
It was chocolate pudding and whipped cream, and you'd put gummy worms in it.
They'd be coming out.
It was just, like, this fun thing that would be at kids' birthdays.
It just feels good to let all my tension out.
Everyone, you have five minutes.
Thank you, Gail.
The last thing I have to do is freeze my passion fruit sorbet with some liquid nitrogen, but I didn't have enough nitrogen, and I couldn't get my passion fruit sorbet frozen in time.
Oh, come on.
Ah, for the love of Mike.
Five Four, three Two, one.
Tools down, time's up, everyone.
[Bleep.]
.
The first thing that went through my head was I had taken this chance to do something for my mom and failed.
Seth is having an issue with his sorbet not being cold enough.
And he just starts breaking down.
[Weeps.]
It's really disrupting the kitchen.
I'm feeling emotional as it is.
It's just making me want to cry as well.
Hi, Yigit.
So tell us what you've made and how penny candy comes into the picture here.
I took some red licorice, infused it into my strawberry base, added a little citrus to cut the sweetness.
I call the dessert "strawberries & cream.
" It's definitely got a candy approach, and I really like that.
Thanks a lot.
Thank you.
Heather.
Hi, Heather.
What do we have here? Well, what I did was I did a play on a creamsicle.
So I made a vanilla panna cotta, and on top is a passion fruit gelee.
I used some of the passion fruit candy as a sweetener.
Thanks.
Thank you very much.
Hi.
Let's find out what you made.
Well, I kind of just took everything orange up there-- orange sticks and lollipops-- and I mixed it with some pistachio and mascarpone and cream.
Are you a candy eater? Not really.
The pistachio flavor comes through well.
Excellent.
Hi, Morgan.
Gail.
Tell us what you made today.
Well, it's, um, penny candy on a pedestal.
It's chick-o-stick sable.
Then over the top of that is a salted malted-milk ganache, and the caramel up top is actually a re-pulled banana lollipop.
Great.
Thank you.
Hi, Malika.
Hello.
Tell us your penny-candy creation.
I have a lemon drop and strawberry parfait.
It is a yuzu cream with a little bit of strawberry gelee under it.
And the top has a little bit of strawberry pop rocks.
Are you a candy eater? You know, I am, because I have three small children, so Thanks a lot.
So what I did for you is a browned butter almond financier with macerated strawberries and a 20-year-aged balsamic.
Did you use any actual penny candy in creating this dessert? No, just the flavors You didn't.
Focusing on strawberry.
I'm just curious why you don't like any candy.
Not all candy.
You're a pastry Chef.
[Laughing.]
I know.
Okay.
Thanks a lot.
Hi, Zac.
Hi, Gail.
Chef.
Tell us about your candy creation.
I created a dark chocolate and sour cream ho ho filled with a red hot cream cheese filling and then a warm black licorice pernod and star anise coulis and a little hot tamale whipped cream.
Did you say there was black licorice in here somewhere? Yeah, it's the black licorice pernod and star anise coulis.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
Eric, tell us about your dessert.
My dessert today is a malted chocolate pudding, and it has barley malt extract in it, a little bit of butterscotch candy, and some malt balls.
And then we have a soft malt ball cookie to go with it.
What kind of chocolate? I used milk chocolate and cocoa powder.
Okay.
Thank you.
Thanks.
Erika, what did you make for us? There's strawberry pop rocks on the bottom with a lemon drop cookie, fresh strawberry sliced with a sour lemon gelee.
And pop rocks on the top, so hopefully they're still popping.
These rocks are definitely popping.
Good.
Great.
Thanks, Erika.
Thank you.
I like that worms and dirt at every kid's birthday party.
So I kind of did it a little fancier, and I did chocolate mousse, and there's sour lemon gummies.
And then the crunch part is malt balls and cacao nibs.
And then I did a lemon soda that I made out of lemon drops.
I got the gummy candy in the bottom.
Yeah, me too.
It's kind of fun.
Mm-hmm.
Thank you, Danielle.
Thank you.
Seth, I noticed you had a little problem finishing today.
What happened here? I tried to do a little too much, and I needed 30 more seconds to get a clean canele, but I stand by the flavors, and I think it's gonna taste good.
Well, then, you know what? That's what matters the most to us, so why don't you tell us what you made? I made a whopper chiffon cake with a red hot coconut jam, passion fruit vanilla sorbet, and pistachios.
My mom goes through every day in so much pain, and the only thing in the world she cares about is my happiness.
And I felt like today was an opportunity to give something back to her.
[Crying.]
I can't do this.
I can't do it.
I can't do this.
I can't do this.
I'm not sure what's going on with Seth, and then I realized that Seth was crying because he didn't put his ice cream on the plate.
Hey, man.
Hey.
Breathe, okay.
Hey, stop.
It's fine.
I can't stop.
I know.
But, listen, man.
Listen, man.
You're a badass Chef.
There's a lot of pressure to perform.
And I can understand that anxiety.
But you got to kind of roll with the punches sometimes.
The red hots are for my mom, and she's so sick.
Hey, sweetie, I got to talk to you for a second, 'cause I've done a lot of these competitions.
And I've never won, so [Laughter.]
I'm totally on your team, man.
I am on your team.
It's okay.
[sobbing.]
I don't understand why anyone is against me.
Nobody's against you.
Then why were you saying anything? It's not okay for you to yell at a contestant or anyone.
It's not for you to tell me what's okay.
I'm totally on your team, man.
I am on your team.
It's okay.
[sobbing.]
They're for my mom, and I [Bleep.]
it up.
Hey, no, no, no.
You didn't [Bleep.]
it up.
I [Bleep.]
it up.
You're here.
I'm gonna pull it together.
But I want you to do something for me.
I've done this a lot.
I've never done this.
I have to pull my head out of my ass a lot, okay? All right.
I'm gonna stop.
Okay.
Thank you.
Be tough.
Thank you, Chef.
You know, losing my first quickfire, I did feel bad for him, but I think that you are in a competition.
That is not how you represent yourself.
You've got to get yourself together and move on.
So, Elizabeth, what did you think of our penny-candy creations? I was just really excited to see a lot of colors and a lot of use of different candies.
So who was the least successful today? One of the least successful dishes today, I think, was Heather C.
, just because you didn't really seem to embrace the challenge, and this is a fun candy challenge, and I just didn't see any fun or any candy.
My other least favorite would be Eric, 'cause I felt like I wanted to see a little bit more exploring of the malted candy.
I felt like it was a little one-dimensional.
Who else was your least favorite? The least successful today, unfortunately, is Seth.
I can tell you, Seth, that I have absolutely been in your shoes when I was on Top Chef Masters.
You got to remember that you got to just keep going.
Every day's a different day.
And this is a challenge, and I know you can step up to it.
Thank you.
So who were the three most successful dessert makers today? It was hard to choose.
You guys are a talented group.
Um, but I would say Heather H.
I really liked the way you used a lot of the different acidic citrus candies and played around with sort of highlighting some of those flavors in different layers.
And then, Danielle, I really liked seeing the playfulness with the lemon soda and the straw.
And then also the worm in the dirt kind of theme-- and very successful and a lot of different textures.
Thank you.
I would say I really liked Zac's dessert, mostly because I thought it was a really good cake, and then you used the red hot candy filling, and then what really brought it home for me was that licorice sauce-- and really tasty, really balanced.
Thank you.
I was very, very happy that she mentioned that I did a cake, 'cause I kind of wanted to stick my tongue out to everyone else and be like, "suck it, bitches," because they did mousse.
You can do mousse in ten minutes.
We had an hour, you know.
Like, let's put some, you know, effort into this.
So who had the best dessert today? I would say Danielle.
[Applause.]
Thank you.
Thanks.
Congratulations, Danielle.
Thank you.
That means you have immunity in our next elimination challenge.
It's really nice to have immunity, but at the same time, I'm gonna put my best foot forward.
I'm gonna make something I would normally make if it depended on me going home or not.
James Beard award winner and Top Chef Master veteran Mark Peel just opened a new 1940s-inspired restaurant called the Tar Pit.
It's where we're going to find out about your next challenge.
Head over to the Tar Pit now, and I'll see you there.
Thank you.
Wow.
Oh, nice.
Hey.
Well, hello.
All: Hello.
Welcome to the Tar Pit.
Mark Peel is the owner of the Tar Pit and a very well-known Chef here in Los Angeles.
Hello, hello, hello.
Hey.
All: Hi.
Hi, Chefs.
All: Hi, Gail.
It's good to see you.
Great to see you too.
Thanks so much for having us.
We chose to come to a high-end bar like this, because for your elimination challenge, you're going to have to create a dish inspired by a great cocktail.
And for this challenge, you're going behind the bar to shop for your ingredients.
There's only a limited amount of items behind the bar.
And that is where my stress is starting.
You've got a different kind of pantry behind the bar.
But you're gonna have to pull the flavors from the bar in creating your desserts.
You'll have just two minutes each behind the bar to shop for ingredients and then three hours back at the Just Desserts kitchen to prepare your cocktail dessert for our judges, as well as 25 discerning barflies.
So Chef Peel has a handful of coasters with numbers on them, which is going to designate the order that we can go and shop behind the bar.
So we're gonna now go one at a time.
Just reveal your numbers.
Yigit.
Erika.
Malika.
Heather C.
Eric? All: Ooh.
[Laughs.]
[quacks.]
I'm really happy to go first.
I totally feel like I have an advantage.
Usuay I'm always last.
All right, Eric, let's get the party started.
Your time starts now.
All right.
Let's go.
I know exactly what I want to do.
I'm really just lookg for pineapple.
Don't get greedy.
I'm cooking for 30.
So I just grab absolutely all of it.
Does anybody want pineapple? Erika, your time starts now.
Mm-hmm, I smell Margarita.
Ha ha.
First thing I think about is how I can incorporate salt into my dessert, because I like margaritas.
I'm seeing that the citrus is starting to disappear, and I'm starting to worry and panic a little bit.
Yigit, your time starts now.
Come on, Yigit.
Go, Yigit.
What you making? A cosmo, girl? Something.
Whatever.
You're not getting any.
Danielle.
I am watching each one go behind the bar and thinking, "don't touch that bottle.
Don't touch that bottle.
" I've got a cocktail in mind, and so far, so good.
Heather C.
Morgan.
Stone-faced.
Ooh.
Jack and coke, baby.
Zac.
Come on, Lady Gaga.
Do your thing.
Yeah, girl.
[Laughs.]
I grab the benedictine, which is perfect, because benedictine has all these great aromatics in it.
Do you need anything specific? There's nothing left.
I see some tarragon.
The licorice-type flavor in the tarragon will be perfect.
You shop with so much grace.
Only in the liquor aisle.
[laughter.]
And then, you know, I have some free time, so I dance a little bit.
I'm like a kid in a candy store back here.
Am I allowed to do shots? Tim.
Come on, old man.
It's like an alcoholic's nightmare.
[Laughs.]
I had this cocktail called the plantation.
All right.
And it's with basil and a rum.
It's delicious.
Go, mama.
"Go, mama.
" What's left? I'm gonna take that one.
Seth.
Don't break anything while you're back there.
I want to make a greyhound dessert.
A greyhound is basically grapefruit and either vodka or gin.
Pink grapefruit.
Pink grapefruit somewhere? I think he just stuck that up his nose.
No pink grapefruit.
The reason I wanted to do a greyhound was because it's refreshing and sweet, so it's kind of like a dessert anyhow, and I felt like if I couldn't do that, I couldn't do anything.
It's not back here.
Rethink.
You got 40 seconds to rethink it.
How am I supposed to make a greyhound without grapefruit juice? Just deal with it.
Ten seconds.
You just got to make a new version, man.
Go, Seth, go.
Go, Seth, go.
Let the creative juices flow.
Go, Seth, go.
Zero.
Bunch of [Bleep.]
haters.
I don't understand why anyone is against me when I'm behind there.
Both: Nobody's against you.
Then why were you saying anything? Oh, lord.
I'm broke.
My mother has over $100,000 in medical bills.
I'm not here for fun.
I'm here to save my life.
Hey, not okay.
It's not okay for you to yell at your contestants or anyone.
It's not for you to tell me what's okay.
Seth, you're being an ass[Bleep.]
.
You know, I could deal with most of this stuff in a normal restaurant scenario, you know, but when it's you have no citrus and now you need to make a cocktail for $100,000, it's a lot more stressful, you know.
I'm a little bit embarrassed.
He should have just gone with the flow and decide something real quick.
I mean, that's part of the challenge, is having to adapt to what you're left with.
All right, Chefs, we got to move on.
I got to get this joint open.
[Laughter.]
We'll see you back here for service.
Blast chiller's off.
It seems to be off.
All I see is Seth running his laps around the kitchen.
It was like someone put a flaming hot poker up his ass.
All right.
For the elimination challenge, we're to take any cocktail and create a dessert around it, using the ingredients from the Tar Pit Restaurant for your main ingredients, as well as what's in the Top Chef pantry.
Isn't very much.
No.
I don't want that.
Glucose, glucose.
Not having recipes and having to think on your toes Three hours isn't a lot of time.
It's really not a lot of time.
You really have to have a lot of confidence in yourself and your skills and your techniques, 'cause if you even just break down, I think, for one moment, that could send you home.
Oh, come on.
I'm working on a pineapple upside-down cake.
The drink that I'm inspired by is a simple bourbon infused with pineapple.
But I'm looking up, and I'm noticing that people are, like, doing fancy things and infusing different flavors.
And I'm always like [sighs.]
I don't know what they're doing.
I'm a baker, and I want to rise to the top.
Duh.
You know.
I'm going to do a black and blue gimlet.
So it's gonna be traditional flavors of a gimlet with the addition of blueberries and blackberries.
I think today I still feel emotionally exhausted, between the crying spell and then the yelling with Yigit.
So today I'm just gonna take it easy and stay out of trouble.
Going around.
Cooking is all I've done most of my life.
You know, I've been thrown into a four-star kitchen as a sous Chef when I was 24 years old.
I feel like I have a tremendous amount of experience.
I have the talent.
I have the technique.
And I really want to show my fellow competitors what they have to go up against.
Ooh.
I want to taste it.
What is it? The drink that inspired me for the dessert is called the plantation.
Nice.
Not too strong, though? Not strong enough? It has basil, so I took the basil and infused it into a custard.
It's a custard cooled, served cold? You need more, 'cause it's gonna-- remember, when it's cold-- I don't have any.
That's all I got.
I don't have quite enough basil, so I'm gonna grind the whole thing, seeds and all.
I'm making a blood-orange mojito cake.
But I feel like the dish is lacking that note of acidity that it needs.
It's too sweet, 'cause I have a white-chocolate mousse.
Maybe a glaze with Powdered sugar.
And rum? Yeah, rum and maybe a little honey.
Hey, Chefs.
What's going on? All: Hi, Johnny.
Hey, Yigit.
Chef, what's up? What are you working on? I'm gonna make a negroni creamsicle.
And I'm gonna make a campari-based citrus coating with kappa carrageenan and a little thai basil ice cream.
Fan of cocktails? Like every Chef, I'm sure.
Yes, indeed, especially after a hard day.
Good luck to you.
Thank you, Chef.
Cheers.
So far, Yigit has felt pretty confident.
You know, he looks like he's organized.
He looks like he's ready for these challenges.
Whether or not he can actually pull it together and succeed, we'll just have to wait and see.
I think my style is entirely different than Yigit's.
I got the basics.
He's got, like, the "so advanced," but I don't think he learned the basics.
I have a lot of experience, so we'll see what happens.
Hey, Tim.
Hi, Johnny.
What's going on, Buddy? It's all good.
What have we got going on here? I have this little cocktail I love called plantation.
Have you got any problems so far? They're not out of the oven yet, so we'll see.
We'll know soon, right? That's why I'm gonna go.
See you later.
Pleasure.
So the two ingredients that Tim really latched on to behind the bar were basil and rum-- you know, two really great ingredients.
I know he's adding alcohol directly to his custard, and a lot of times that can change the way it bakes, so I'm interested in seeing how it sets up.
My man Seth.
Hey, how are you, Chef? Nice to see you.
How are we holding up, Buddy? I only got one pint of blueberries, and I needed 16 ounces, so I had to use a little blue food coloring, unfortunately.
Uh-oh.
So I'm making some surprise textures.
I'm going to do a juniper gelee, agar agar locust bean gum gelatin, and then I'm gonna have some blackberry fizzy tabs.
And then there's gonna be a couple other things that I can't remember right now, and hopefully it's all gonna come together.
Sounds like you got a lot going on.
Take a deep breath and get to it.
Thank you very much.
Good luck, man.
Yes, thank you.
Hello, Erika.
Hi, Chef, how are you? How are we doing? Pretty good.
Why don't you tell me about what you're gonna make? So I made a Tequila mousse with orange and lime.
And I'm gonna make a Margarita bombe.
Well, I happen to love margaritas too, so I can't wait to try it.
Awesome.
Thanks, Chef.
Thank you.
Bye-bye.
Bye-bye.
Erika's basic idea of using a brulee is simple, but she's adding different layers and textures to it, so it actually makes it a much more complicated dessert.
19 minutes! 19 minutes.
Right behind, please.
Right behind.
Working in a kitchen with Seth is a little hectic.
Open flame.
He is the kind of person that I stay away from.
I'm like, "seriously?" Blast chiller's off.
It seems to be o.
Just close the door.
It'll start again.
All is see is Seth, you know, running his laps around the kitchen.
I mean, like, it was like someone put a flaming hot poker up his ass.
Very hot.
Very hot.
Watch out, crazy man.
And it's really nerve-racking.
I can't find my cake.
Does anyone see a really blueberry-colored cake anywhere? No? Blueberry cake? All right, I found it.
I found it.
Seth is so mentally draining.
I mean, he's just taking away from us focusing on what we're here to do.
Five minutes! Five minutes.
You want me to wrap this? Yeah.
And then I have my basil ice cream in there too.
I'm definitely stressed.
It's a lot to get done.
I feel bad asking you for help.
I may have gone overboard a little bit-- a little bit too complicated.
But, you know, I guess I'll have to wait and see what the judges think.
Minute and a half.
Oh, my Jesus.
Time! Whew.
[bleep.]
.
Nice work, guys.
Good job, everybody.
It's always a pleasure.
It's not a pleasure to be in the bottom three.
No.
That's not a pleasure.
[Laughs.]
Oh, my God.
Seth really made an embarrassment of himself at the Tar Pit in front of Chef Peel.
And there's some tension between Seth and us.
I think we're a little bit dumbfounded by his behavior.
I think you need to apologize to all of us.
I'd like to apologize.
We all have some issues.
I can do that.
I can do that too.
I'm not quite sure what's gonna happen next.
I'm actually a little bit nervous.
I'll try to make it up to you.
That's all I can really do.
[Scoffs.]
I don't want you to make it up to me.
I want you to just treat us like decent people.
I'm gonna try harder starting tomorrow.
I understand it.
I feel [Bleep.]
humiliated, you know.
Seth feels like he let his mom down, but we all have issues.
My dad passed away from lung cancer just a few years ago, and somehow I actually managed to pull through.
You have to understand that, no matter what's going on in your personal life, you have no idea what each of us are going on-- you know, have happening outside of this.
Mm-hmm.
We could have trauma.
You have no idea, and it's very selfish of you.
Yep.
I'm truly sorry for everything that you're going through, but you have no idea about everyone else's personal business.
I agree with everything you just said, and I hope I can, you know, start making up for it tomorrow.
That's all I can do.
Regardless of everything that he's done, I still want to give the guy the benefit of the doubt and, you know, hope that it'll be good for him too.
You know, because if he's miserable, it's not gonna be good for anyone.
And you let me know anything that I can do to help, you know.
At this point, distance would be greatly appreciated.
All right.
Thank you.
You got it.
[Clatter.]
Oh, my God.
[gasps.]
Are you kidding me? I look over, and I see my chocolate squares on the floor.
I didn't do it.
I didn't do it.
So the challenge is to serve a dessert that is inspired by a cocktail, and you only have one hour to plate 30 desserts.
Let's do this, ladies.
So I walk into Chef Mark Peel's kitchen at the Tar Pit, and it's a small space for all of us to prep and work together.
Watch your back.
It's gonna be staggered.
It's gonna be three Chefs plating up at a time for the judges and 25 diners.
Coming through, guys.
So it's gonna be interesting.
My gelee is gonna be harder than yours.
Yeah.
I'm really stressed when I start to prep for service, because this is the first time I've ever done it in my life.
I got 20 more minutes left, and I just realize that I'm, like, one dessert short.
So I have to rethink my plating.
I have a full sphere, and I was going to serve it that way, but now I'm gonna cut it in half, so then they can see everything that's inside.
And I don't think they're gonna expect that at all.
[Alarm sounds.]
Time.
Time! Stop it.
Are you taking mine? All right, judges are always gonna be on this side of the plate.
I'm feeling good about my cocktail dessert.
But I'm a little nervous about the salt.
I want to be in the top three, and I want to kick ass and win.
Hi, Chefs.
All: Hi.
I'd like to introduce you to your judges for today's challenge.
Of course, you all know head judge Johnny Iuzzini.
And yesterday you met Elizabeth Falkner.
And I'd like to welcome a familiar face, one of our permanent judges, Chef Hubert Keller.
And say hello again to Chef Mark Peel, and finally Daphne Brogdon, Mark's wife and business partner.
All: Hello.
So, Erika, we're gonna start with you.
Tell us what cocktail dessert you've made from behind the Tar Pit bar.
My dessert is a top-shelf Margarita.
My bombe has a lime cookie with a Tequila mousse and grand marnier creme brulee.
Also, just to let you know, there is salt, because it is a Margarita.
I was really inspired by the ginger-lime cocktail, and so I did a lime and lemon curd tart.
There's toasted coconut on top, and then I made a rum sabayon and candied kumquats.
Well, I was inspired by a strange drink which consisted of, like, bourbon and pineapple.
What I picked from the bar was Kentucky bourbon and pineapple, and I made a pineapple upside-down cake.
Thank you so much, Chefs.
Thanks.
What did you think of Erika's Margarita bombe? I loved the subtlety of it.
It is a little bit bland.
And then you get the salt, and you go-- and your mouth goes, "oh.
" I really feel Erika embraced the cocktail flavor.
She really took a Margarita and really transformed it into a dessert.
Oh, salt.
I just crunched.
An actual piece of salt? Yeah.
Yeah.
Tell me what you thought of Danielle's dessert.
I would have liked to have seen the mingue torte, personally, 'cause I just really like a little more caramelization going on.
This doesn't resemble a cocktail to me at all.
I have no idea where she went.
I can't even figure out which alcohol is in this.
There's a little rum in the sabayon, and I think that's it.
It's a good dessert.
I think the texture is well done.
But it's true.
It misses a little bit-- part of the shine and dry when it comes to a cocktail.
It was so delicious and refreshing.
I just loved the lime zesty taste.
Visually, even though Eric's dish was the simplest, to me, it had the most flavor of the three that we tasted by far.
I had to stop myself from completely gobbling up Eric's upside-down cake.
I thought it was delicious.
I really enjoyed the cake texture a lot.
And I did get a lot of bourbon flavor, so the aftertaste in my mouth is like a cocktail.
Oh, my God.
I'm not gonna get this done.
I am so [Bleep.]
.
Let me help, man.
At this point, I just want to get all the elements onto the plate for the judges, even if it doesn't look 100%.
And it just breaks my heart.
Seth, one thing, do you mind getting my basil ice cream out of the freezer? Is it green? Yes.
This is the freezer.
Oh, oh, oh.
Basil, basil.
And Seth was, ironically enough, kind of remorseful, and he was trying to help get ice creams on the plate.
Here you go.
Time? Three minutes.
[Bleep.]
! I got three minutes to scoop 36 scoops of sorbet? This is bad.
Anyone have a scoop I could borrow? Yigit.
Thank you.
[Alarm sounds.]
When the timer goes off, I feel utterly heartbroken, because I know that my plates didn't look as beautiful as I know they were gonna look, so I'm just worried that, you know, not having finished is gonna definitely count against me.
Okay, Chefs, queue up.
That puts me on the bottom three.
You're not gonna be the only one.
We're gonna start with you, Yigit.
I translated a negroni.
I used campari to make a campari and blood-orange agar agar.
And then for the creamsicle part, I made a citrus-scented vanilla panna cotta.
And I paired that with a sweet basil ice cream, which I think just kind of ties everything together.
My favorite cocktail on the earth, it might possibly be the simplest-- okay, so we've got a cola-spiced dickel's whiskey cake.
And that's being served over a coke fluid gel and a Dickel's Tennessee gelee.
Great.
Enjoy.
I decided to do a gingerbread cake with a el Dorado 15-year rum caramel sauce and then garnished just like the Jamaican firefly with some candied ginger as well.
Thanks, Chefs.
All: Thank you.
Elizabeth, did you like Yigit's dessert? What comes together for me the most is all of this color on the plate.
It looks like a fun, cocktail-themed dessert.
How do you make ice cream out of basil? Oh, see, I'm really into that.
I like it too.
The ice cream, you know, unfortunately was a little bit melted.
That's a timing issue, so that's, again, that's something he has to think about when he plates.
The campari is one of my favorite flavors, so of course I enjoyed that.
Tell me what you thought of Morgan's whiskey cake.
What I really liked in that dish was the gelee.
It suddenly pops in your mouth like a cocktail, right? He did a great job.
I just wish there was one more thing on that cake.
I found it very dry too.
It didn't really seem like a dessert.
I was really looking forward to trying Heather C's dessert.
She's got a lot of great Spice in there.
It's a really delicious gingerbread.
It doesn't really all come together the way I think she wanted it to.
I was actually really excited about having lime in the middle of it, but I didn't get any lime.
15 minutes.
Are you using this freezer behind you? Are you gonna use this? No.
Seth is near my station, and there's all this action going on right next to me.
Right behind, right behind, right behind.
It gets on my nerves.
It's just like, come on.
[Clatter.]
Oh, are you okay? Yeah, yeah, just dropping [Bleep.]
like an idiot.
Seth is going into his freak-out mode.
I'm running really short on time.
I don't think I'm gonna finish, and I think I'm gonna go home in the bottom three.
As much as he pisses me off, as much as I bitch about him, I can't watch someone go down like that.
Do you need help? Yes.
Just throw it on a plate.
Just start-- or if you can set up plates for me somewhere, I'm just gonna chuck everything on with no particular order.
We have nine minutes, guys.
Nine minutes.
18, 20, 22, 24.
Am I there? You're there.
Let me do a couple extra just in case.
[Bleep.]
Slop shop [Bleep.]
House.
Zac helps me out, which is really great.
He's helping me get stuff on a plate.
And now I'm done.
Can I help you? Can I do anything? I can put meringue sticks.
Can I help? I'm good.
Sometimes you are gonna need help from other people.
And if I could help someone else to complete their dish, that's what I'm gonna do.
Who else? I'm gonna come help you right now.
What can I do? What can I do, Chef? Seth, stay by the time clock.
Give us a countdown, please.
I'm doing it.
I'm trying to get to it.
I'm trying to get to the clock.
You have four seconds, four seconds.
[Alarm sounds.]
Ah! I feel that I have a beautiful dish that's gone out, but I'm really concerned about my balance in the flavors.
I am concerned that this dish might send me home.
Seth, we're gonna start with you.
Great.
Tell us about your dessert.
The blueberry gimlet.
Of course you have blueberries, raspberries, hendrick's gin, tanqueray gin, lemon juice, lime juice, and soda.
And the rest is up to you to find.
So I did a blood-orange and blackberry mojito.
I have a cake soaked with white rum, blood orange, and then I have a white-chocolate mousse infused with some fresh cream.
Well, my inspiration was a white Russian.
I added some chocolate into it and coffee and a Kahlua and a little bit of vodka, just to give it a little bit of a refreshing bite to cut off with the custard.
Great.
Thank you so much.
Thanks, Chefs.
I think that Malika's dessert was one of the least successful for me.
I got a lot of the fresh-mint flavor, but I didn't get the effect of rum or blood orange.
Malika's dessert reminded me like one of those desserts that has that sugary icing on top.
And if you eat the whole piece, you pass out.
I think Malika embraced the challenge from the cocktail sampling.
I just think it was very heavy-handed.
Heather's dessert, I must say, there was too much going on, I think, between the layers.
I think she overthought it and felt like she had to keep adding to it.
I think if she would have simplified and had a couple less components that that dessert would have been a greater success.
Seth indicated there were some surprises in here.
What did you find? First of all, it's a blue cake.
So that's kind of a little shocking, 'cause blue in the pastry world is usually a faux pas.
I love gin, and it doesn't taste like it, you know.
And I just-- I needed more gin.
He used two different gins, and I really didn't get either of those gins.
2, 4, 6, 8, 10, 12 [Clatter.]
Oh, my God.
Oh, my God.
Are you kidding me? I didn't do it.
I didn't do it.
There's still some that are on the acetate that you can choose to use.
I can't use 'em.
I look over, and I see all of my chocolate squares on the floor.
What happened? I was standing right here, and I heard it fall.
I wasn't even moving.
I swear on my life.
Are you--are you joking? I swear I don't know what happened, man.
I swear I don't know.
I didn't move.
Did you get your judges' plates done? Nope.
Those were the ones I was saving for the judges.
But that's fine.
Thanks.
And instead of getting out of the way I got to come back in here and clean.
He decides to hang around while I'm plating.
Watch your back, honey.
Go, go, go.
Step on me.
I don't care.
Oh, don't worry.
Judges first.
Just finish your judges' plates.
It's okay.
You know what? It's fine.
I'm fine.
I'm totally, totally fine.
[Alarm sounds.]
[Bleep.]
! I missed one, one tuile.
Tuile in hands.
Missed one.
How come I didn't get a tuile? Where's your tuile? I went out of my way to help someone in this competition, and it ends up biting me in the ass.
They knock over my stuff, and I end up with incomplete plates.
Zac, we're gonna start with you.
Tell us what you made today.
Essentially, it's my take on a jager bomb.
We have a dark-chocolate malt cake, which I've filled with a benedictine cremeux.
On top of it, we have a lime pallet.
A tarragon tuile finishes it off to bring out more of those aromatics.
I have a cocktail that I really love, and it's called the plantation.
I have actually a basil pudding underneath some orange, some kumquat, and a lime granita.
Thank you both so much.
Both: Thank you.
I think v really grabbed the bull by the horns on this one.
You know, he took such a low-brow cocktail and really brought some elegance to it.
I loved the whole concept of it a lot.
I'm not sure if I really am getting the full effect of a cocktail.
It kind of reminds me of, like, a cake that hasn't fully cooked yet.
I tasted, like, one big, huge shot of alcohol, and I was like, "whoa.
" What did you think of Tim Nugent's plantation dessert? I think this is the second dish that Tim has presented to us in a bowl.
And I don't know if that's his comfort zone or not, but I think he's got to kind of get away from that a little bit, because in this case, it worked against him.
But also it's kind of a mess when you start digging into it too.
It becomes like scrambled eggs in a soup.
[Laughs.]
So it's not pleasing to look at while you're eating it, you know.
Mine looks the messiest of all.
But, you know, I really-- actually I do enjoy the flavors.
It just really left a lot to be desired.
I totally gave one of the judges a burnt tuile.
That's all right.
I had two rings to put on, and I didn't.
I am worried that, since my dish is incomplete, the judges aren't gonna get the full profile of it.
This could land me in the bottom three.
I made myself vulnerable in front of you, and now you're all taking advantage of it.
I am so over this.
You guys want to play cards or something? We could use that to make a deck of cards.
It's nothing against anyone.
I just want to sit in silence, please.
Seth is a rather intense individual.
I'm sorry.
I just got to play with something.
I'm feeling really antsy right now.
I hope Seth can find his self-control within his passion.
This is my anti-camera helmet I'm gonna build.
[Laughs.]
I think people are just really tired over Seth and his emotional outbursts and his selfish behavior.
And I feel like he needs to stop being a child, pull his [Bleep.]
together, and move on.
[Laughter.]
You cannot see my emotions.
[Laughs.]
Judges table makes me nervous, but it's just that waiting time.
But I feel good in my heart that I'm gonna have a good dessert.
Here you go.
Hello, Gail.
Hi.
Hi, Gail.
We'd like to see Erika Yigit And Eric.
Thanks.
I'm happy for Eric, because I think he's somebody who, like, needs it now in order to survive another day.
You don't know.
This could be the bottom three for all you know.
But I tasted his dish, and it's not bottom three.
And I tasted her dish.
And I loved everything that, you know-- I invite you-- I invite you to speak your mind all the time, and I'm never gonna judge you just for saying the truth.
You can say whatever you want.
I'm just saying-- so I phrase it in the wrong way? Let her talk.
Let her talk.
Please? Let her finish.
You interrupt people.
You're so hard on me.
You're so hard on me.
No, but you don't let people finish talking.
If you listen and you take in-- I'm actually getting really angry right now, so Oh, my God.
I am.
I'm trying not to.
I'm trying not to.
But I'm getting [Bleep.]
Pissed off now.
At what I'm saying? Seriously? You guys are incredible, man.
I made myself vulnerable in front of you, and now you're all taking advantage of it.
I am so over this.
I was trying to be supportive of Eric.
Okay.
Let's stop.
How can that be evil? Let's just talk about something else, 'cause it's just not-- we know where this is gonna go.
Please don't stew.
I'm not gonna last one more elimination if I let these people get in my head.
Everyone saw how I can cook when my head is on straight.
I was a stronger cook before I was a nicer guy, so I'm gonna be a [Bleep.]
, and I'm gonna cook, and I'm gonna win this whole [Bleep.]
.
And you can all suck it.
I don't [Bleep.]
Care anymore.
All: Whoa! That's it.
Chefs, today we asked you to get behind the bar and choose ingredients that would normally be used in a cocktail and turn them into an unforgettable dessert.
Yours were the three best desserts of the day.
[Laughs.]
Yes.
Congratulations.
Thank you.
You can breathe now.
Oh, my gosh.
[Laughter.]
Erika, tell us about how you came to your dessert today.
Well, my favorite drink is a Margarita.
So I just wanted to keep it clean and simple, and I love Tequila.
And I put that on the plate along with some salt.
Erika, I thought it was aesthetically beautiful.
It was really well plated.
You know, I tasted the alcohol in every bite.
It was well balanced.
Thank you.
Also, the Tequila sauce-- I thought it was beautiful.
Yeah, I liked how it was clear too Yeah.
Yeah.
With the vanilla specks in it, but just a clear sauce.
I always like that kind of surprise.
Eric.
Pineapple upside-down cake with bourbon.
Eric, I think it was well executed, I must say.
The consistency of the cake was really nice and moist.
I think the caramelization on the pineapples really, really sticked out, so I think it's probably one of the desserts that the four of us, we almost finished the plate, so that was a good sign.
Thank you very much.
But also I think, to be in the Top Chef: Just Desserts category, you're gonna have to, you know, think about the aesthetic here and there, so This today was the first time I've ever done plated service in my life.
It was just very overwhelming for me.
Yigit, tell us about how you came to your dessert today.
Um, negronis I love, so I wanted to compare something with campari in kind of a refreshing, creamy idea, so, hence, I used a panna cotta.
And, like, being here right now is priceless, so thank you so much.
Well, thank you.
We all were obviously very impressed.
We loved the flavors too.
I thought you had a beautiful, colorful interpretation of a cocktail as a dessert.
I also liked how cold it was.
It actually made me think of a cocktail because of the chill factor on it.
Thank you very much.
What I really liked about it is the consistency of the panna cotta, the creaminess when you take it out with the spoon, so that was really well done.
Elizabeth, as our guest judge, please announce our winner.
The Chef who did the best job of taking a cocktail and interpreting it into a fantastic dessert was Erika.
[laughs.]
Oh, gosh.
Congratulations, Erika.
Thank you so much.
Thank you.
So this is my first win.
I'm feeling good about it.
This is starting to feel like the game has started, you know.
Watch out, world, here comes sassy mama.
Now I have to ask you to send back three of your colleagues.
Thank you all.
Thank you.
Thank you.
I don't consider myself a competitive person, but once I get into the game, I'm a bulldog.
I won.
[Cheers and applause.]
They would like to see Malika, Tim, and Seth.
Unfortunately, the three of you made the least satisfying desserts.
[Exhales deeply.]
Tim, you had the basil-rum citrus plantation dessert.
Was the end result how you envisioned it? Yeah.
I just was resembling a cocktail that I like to drink, that's all.
It's funny you say that you wanted to resemble a cocktail, because five minutes into eating it, it really became a soupy mess.
It was bruleed, which I think also kind of went away.
So there was that line in between to keep the citrus wet from hitting the custard, but after 30 of 'em, I think it was a little wet by the time they got to the table.
What drives me crazy is you probably have one of the sharpest palates of all the Chefs here.
Your flavors are almost spot on every time.
You just have a very difficult time putting it all together.
Seth.
Yes.
I know that you had a bit of a rocky start getting here.
Yeah.
[clears throat.]
Tell us why you think we were unhappy with your dessert today.
It was a bad dish, and I won't lie and say I stand behind it.
I made too many components.
I messed 'em all up.
And I probably should have just left some off the plate.
And I think at the point, I honestly was just trying to make it look soignee.
It seems like you're a little too harsh on yourself on that one, I must say.
No, no, no, I must say.
The thing about the cake itself, the blueberry cake, right, I think there was no really-- we couldn't see any blueberry.
It was a blue cake.
You're a smart guy.
You're a smart pastry Chef.
Thank you.
I think you're trying to do too much too fast.
You need to pick a flavor, pick a goal, and work towards it.
If I stay, I mean, I'm definitely gonna try to take that advice to heart.
You said that you just couldn't focus during the challenge.
What was going on? Um, I mean, the reason I couldn't focus is just because of the ridiculous emotional breakdown I had in the quickfire.
I would have loved to have just, you know, gone home, but I've always been taught that the show must go on.
If you got to stay here, how can we be sure that that's not gonna happen again? I honestly can't promise that.
Malika Let's talk about your mojito cake.
I chose the mojito, because I really love the combination and the balance of flavors.
And I know that my dish really lacked that.
I think, Malika, where it really went wrong is giving us such a big piece of cake, right, and I must say I have a sweet tooth, and I love sweets, but that one was really sweet, yeah, so You know, realistically, I wanted something airy and very tart in the middle, and I didn't complete that.
Malika, this is the second time that time has become your enemy.
What do you think is going wrong in the kitchen? Why is this happening? With the challenge today, I was trying to backtrack and fix what bothered me about the dish.
But what I really should have done is change my plan and done something different.
Okay, we'll call you back here when we're ready.
Thank you.
We don't know.
[chuckles.]
Seth did 11 different things, I think he pointed out to us.
Maybe eight of which actually got on the plate.
Right.
When you think in normal circumstance, right, for 25 people, 11 items, it's suicide.
It also really didn't make the cocktail.
It was just so scattered, really, all over the plate, so Challenge after challenge, Tim has really shown great flavor combinations.
Yeah, you can't really deny it, except it just, after a bite, completely collapsed on me, and I couldn't get past that look of a curdled soup.
Honestly, I think he never did that dessert before, and probably, instead of admitting it, maybe that was a mistake-- he should just stick to it.
And I don't think that he would serve that in his restaurant.
And then there was Malika's dish, her mojito cake.
I really wasn't a fan of the dish.
I thought it was too sweet.
I couldn't really find the elements that she had described.
I think, at least, Malika, she admitted that she was not happy about the dessert, right? I think Malika's having a really hard time adapting to what these challenges call for, and that worries me a lot.
Well, I think it's pretty clear which way the ax is gonna fall tonight.
It shouldn't be too complicated.
Let's bring them out here.
You each are here for the same reason-- failure to change when problems arise.
Tim, your flavor combination was great.
But once we tried to eat it, it became a bowl of scrambled eggs floating in soup.
Malika, the dessert you envisioned in your mind unfortunately did not translate to the dish.
Seth, just because you have 50 techniques in your arsenal doesn't mean you should use 50 techniques in one single dish.
Gail.
Tim, your dessert just didn't measure up.
Please pack your tools and go.
I'm a little shocked to be going home maybe this early.
I liked the dish, and I thought it went really well with the challenge.
This won't change anything I've done in the last 20 years, so I'll stick to the same kind of style.
All: No! Tim! What? No.
Bye.
You're kidding.
No! [Applause.]
Thank you.
Pleasure.
Pleasure.
This whole experience for Just Desserts, it's overwhelming.
It's exciting.
It's nerve-racking.
But I met some fabulous people, and I have no regrets at all.
Next time on Top Chef: Just Desserts All: So come on, all you Chefs, and bake, bake, bake.
You'll be throwing a bake sale.
[Cheers and applause.]
Frickin' chaos.
Hot! Shaking.
Shaking.
Did you take all the peanut butter? Yes.
It's [Bleep.]
Sabotage time? Hey.
I see you shaking the [Bleep.]
Table.
It's driving me crazy.
You're what? I'm leaving.
Seth has already made it clear that he can't interact with children, or he'll cuss too much.
Have you been snorting buttercream? You could almost taste the resentment in her cookie.
I [Bleep.]
Hate this room.