Top Chef:Just Desserts 10/20/10--"Black and White"

Previously on “Top Chef: Just Desserts”: Soufflés were created. Yigit made the best one, and the other two members of his clique ended up on the bottom. Then the judges wanted “edible” fashion but didn’t specify that they really meant “chocolate” fashion so they dinged Heather C. and Danielle. They also were supposed to make petits fours to go with their clothes, and no one wanted to make lettuce and kale flavored petits fours. Morgan won, which pissed off Zac in a delicious manner. I still think they should have had to make clothes women could wear, even if only for 10 minutes. Heather C. went home again, as Danielle had one good petit four and Eric’s flavors were good. (click for more)

Danielle doesn’t think she’s “progressing” but she’s still here. She feels good about what she’s doing but the judges keep putting her in the bottom. Zac makes fun of Heather C. being gone again, even though she only came back because Seth was crazy pants. Heather H. would like Morgan to go home because he “doesn’t play fair”, degrades women, and is generally annoying. I’m not sure how degrading women isn’t “playing fair” but OK.

The guest judge for this round is…Isaac Mizrahi! No, not really, although it looks like him. It’s Michael Laiskonis, who is the pastry chef at Eric Ripert’s restaurant. Everyone seems to be afraid of him. There is a table full of savory foods by Gail, because their [product placement] Quickfire is to make a savory dessert. Zac complains that he doesn’t even eat real food, let alone cook it. I thought he might survive on a diet of glitter and rainbow Skittles, but he says it’s potato chips and ice cream. They only get one pot to cook in. Heh. No mixers, no blenders, no ice cream machine. The [product placement] is for dish soap, and I was wondering why there was such a stupid random product placement, but as it turns out, they can wash the pot as many times as they want! With their [product placement] soap! Hey, they aren’t paying ME. Plus, being able to wash out the pot a million times kind of defeats the purpose of a one-pot dish. Winner gets immunity.

One hour to cook. Morgan flies over to the table and tears the beets out of Zac’s hands. Some of them anyway. Heather says Morgan elbowed her in the mouth. I’m not sure how he did that, since they’re on opposite sides of the table, and there’s no footage, but I guess it could have happened. I looked, though. She immediately is like, “OMG you guys, look at the giant bump on my lip”. Any sympathy anyone might have had for Morgan evaporates as he interviews that if you go to the post with Shaq and he knocks you on your ass, you learn not to go to the post with Shaq. Zac complains about only having one pot. Yigit I guess grabbed all the bacon and hid it under the table, and is only letting his clique use it. That is pretty weak. I mean, grab it all and hoard it, OK, but hiding it so only your friends can use it? Seriously. Erika is pissed and she complains to Danielle about it. She says she’s tired of the bullshit. I would have gone and taken some while they were nowhere around. Yigit talks about coming out and how his family is supportive of him. Even though the ice cream machine is off limits, apparently they can still use liquid nitrogen, because Morgan is making sorbet. Someone rolls their eyes and says that won’t work, but it totally will because a ton of people make sorbet like that all the time.

Zac: steamed golden and red beet cake with sweet goat cheese cream and lemon thyme gremolata. Eric: couscous with milk, apricot and fig compote, and prosciutto. He says it’s a breakfast dish, and that sounds pretty good. Danielle: avocado with candied tomatoes, basil anglaise, and caramelized corn. It’s like, avocado pudding with stuff. Interesting. Morgan: sweet potato risotto with golden beet sorbet and ginger infused carrots. After the judges eat his food they show a shot of Heather icing her lip. But I REALLY want his dish. Yigit: chocolate cremeux with bacon fat and caramelized foie gras. That does not sound anywhere near as good as Morgan’s or Eric’s. Heather: sour cream corn custard with roasted beet berry compote and mascarpone cream. For all her complaining, her lip looks fine.

Danielle’s dish wasn’t sweet enough, and Eric’s dish wasn’t close enough to dessert. Heather also didn’t layer properly or cook her beets right. Morgan took a risk with his sorbet, Zac’s cake was warm and moist, and Yigit was refined. The winner is Zac. Well at least Yigit didn’t win. He fawns over himself because I guess he was upset at not having won anything yet. Gail offers him $1000 for his immunity, and he tries to bargain with her for more money. He wants to get to the end, but she offers him $5000 and he takes it. He immediately regrets his decision.

For the Elimination challenge, the L.A. Times is celebrating their anniversary with a “black and white” party tomorrow. Each chef will make 200 portions of a black and white dessert. Danielle freaks out because she says there are a lot of “creepy white foods.” Um…yeah. She’s seriously twitching. Oh no! What is Zac going to do? They get $500 to shop, 4 hours to cook today, and 1 hour to prep tomorrow.

I think everyone uses color in everything, so they’re all freaking out to some extend. Zac prays: "Dear God. I will give you back my $5000 for immunity. Thanks. Heart, Zac." Eric jokes that he’s going to just buy pudding cups and bake them in. He’s probably the most confident with the lack of color, as he’s a baker and he doesn’t always make super pretty plated desserts.

Yigit is going to make a cherry compote that will be black somehow. Zac thinks they’re on the same wavelength, but even if they had the same ingredients, they’d make totally different things, which is why he hasn’t killed Yigit yet. They have themes? I guess? Danielle is making things in shapes of numbers. Zac has decided to make a deep fried whoopie pie. He feels frying is exciting. Eric is short on eggs, but is trying to find them I guess, but is hogging the mixer and pissing off Erika. To his credit he feels terrible.

Johnny shows up to talk about how hard it is to use flavors without the colors of the ingredients. He also chides people on elevating their dishes and also making sure there are no colors. So people have been putting headlines on their dishes, and I mostly ignored them, but Heather says her dish is “The Bold and the Beautiful” which is the name of the soap opera I watch (shut up) and I wonder if she thinks she came up with that on her own? Gingerbread with cranberries and pomegranate sounds good but not black. Morgan has a grand plan, which includes compensating for the fact that cocoa powder makes cakes red. Huh? Erika likes her ice cream. She says she’s known for her ice cream.

Back at the loft Zac and Yigit sing showtunes loudly and piss off Morgan. He says he doesn’t want to be “bombarded with flamboyance” when he’s tired. Heh.

The day of the party everyone runs to set up. Zac has to batter and bread all his whoopie pies. Morgan’s cake has failed. He put syrup on the cakes, to soak in and make them moist, only he used way too much, or it didn’t soak in, or something. It’s a mess. It sounds like they didn’t soak up, because he’s soaking them again. Yigit has to finish his compote and cut and assemble and do a gang of stuff. Eric asks him what he’s making, which is essentially a chocolate napoleon, but Yigit rambles that if you use the French name you can charge 4 times as much. Eric then interviews that he has no idea what Yigit does ever. He may have cooked his compote down too far. Heather can’t find her rice krispie treats, so immediately she blames Morgan. Does he have rice krispie treats? No? Then shut up about it. At least Ed could say “Hey, Alex has pea puree that he didn’t have yesterday, and I’m missing pea puree, so…”

Yigit: chocolate cake with white chocolate mousse, berry compote, and almond milk ice cream. There‘s some tea in there too somewhere. I guess we’re going to let chocolate = black? Yes? Even though it’s brown? I know black is hard to get. Erika: lemon poppy seed ice cream with white chocolate pave and blackberry crème brulee. Pave is cake, I think. Sadly the blackberries are obviously purple. They like Yigit’s dessert, even though the compote is gummy. They also like that Erika wanted to not do chocolate, but her ice cream is soapy and tastes of glue. Zac: deep fried whoopie pie and passion fruit cream and Asian pear. As you can guess, fried food is nowhere near black or white. Even though it sounds good. Morgan makes fun of Zac’s voice. There are a lot of flavors, but the pies are heavy and sticky. Morgan: chocolate date cake, banana anise cream and coffee Kahlua jelly. The cake is soaked in toffee syrup. It’s all in squares, very art deco. Heather: spicy chocolate gingerbread torte, with frozen crème anglaise and blackberry compote. It looks like she just cut blackberries for plating, so they are at least darker than Erika’s. Johnny still harasses her about it. They like Morgan’s dish, but Gail thinks the cake is dry. Heather’s is good too, although Johnny is sad she didn’t listen to him about the color. Eric: Mississippi mud cake with Earl Grey whipped cream and hot fudge sauce. Yum. Gail praises his plating. They seem to like it. Danielle: lemongrass and ginger truffle, meringue with white peppercorns and cocoa nibs, and a chocolate sandwich cookie. Since it’s the 128th anniversary of the Times, the truffle looks like a 1, the meringue is the 2 and the cookie is the 8. Zac thinks it’s stupid, but Gail likes the playfulness. Johnny agrees with Zac that it’s a petit four plate, and it’s too sweet on top of that. Heather is really confident, which is usually not a good sign.

Commercial interlude: the clique gets drunk and acts stupid. These used to be funnier.

Yigit asks if anyone else was missing anything, because it’s “shocking”. I can’t believe they have the balls to accuse people with absolutely no proof other than “I think Morgan is a jerk”. Gail collects Heather, Erika, and Danielle. Surprise! You are the worst! I like that they do that every once in a while. Heather says she was happy with her dessert. It wasn’t black and white enough. They liked the flavors, but they think she might have been so stubborn she just made what she wanted without adhering to the challenge. Erika didn’t get her blackberries as dark as she wanted but she loved her ice cream. Johnny jumps on that and says it was not lemony but soapy. The blackberry layer didn’t even taste like blackberries. Danielle thought she did well, but the meringue didn’t taste like anything, and the three pieces didn’t go together. She tries to say she was trying to be creative, but Johnny calls it a copout, because she didn’t think about the order people were going to eat the three components in. The girls get kicked out so the guys can replace them.

Back it the Stew Room the guys complain because they think they are the bottom. Erika is really pissed because she says none of her ice cream tastes like soap. Heather doesn’t want the boys to dominate, so I guess Team Diva isn’t so solid. When Gail tells the boys they are the top, they’re all super relieved and it’s obvious the girls didn’t bother to tell them about it. Heh. Zac’s whoopie pie “embraced” the theme, even though it was BROWN. Whatever. They like Morgan’s confidence and construction, and flavors. Eric has great layered textures and Johnny says this is the best dessert he’s given them. Yigit’s dish was very complex, so he wins. Feh. He’s still cocky but nowhere near as obnoxious as when he won the Quickfire the other week.

Danielle didn’t think about how people would eat her dessert, and now they’re claiming presentation comes second to taste. Her flavors weren’t good enough. In the Stew Room she’s yelling about how she can’t cook for another palate other than hers. Erika’s dessert had blackberries all over, which Gail didn’t taste, and they all hate the ice cream. Erika’s pissed too. Heather tried to coast on her skill, but she was too stubborn and it wasn’t interesting or inventive.

I think the best part of the final judging comments is the part where Johnny tells Heather she sabotages herself. However, Erika gets sent home. She’s still proud of her dish, and proud of herself. She’s going to keep it real.

Next week: Team Diva vs. everyone else in the Kitchen Prep Relay Race (oh MAN I hope Team Diva fails), plus, Restaurant Wars! The cracks in Team Diva continue to widen.