Death by Chocolate

Top Chef: Just Desserts - Season 1, Episode 1

Previously on Just Desserts: A bunch of Top Chef contestants who couldn't make a panna cotta if the recipe was tattooed on their junk. Wouldn't it be nice if there were chefs who could turn out a batch of cookies without burning down the building? The Top Chef producers certainly thought so, and have given us this spinoff, in which twelve pastry chefs will compete to see who can induce the most cavities. I feel like I may have a more discerning eye when it comes to these dishes than in the original Top Chef, not only because I like to do a lot of experimental baking, but because I live with the biggest sweet tooth in the world. Thanks to LabRat, more desserts come and go through this apartment than through Willy Wonka's factory. Ready to go? Grab a bowl of Reese's Pieces, and let's hit it!

Gail Simmons welcomes us to the competition. We have to wait approximately two seconds before the first hilarious comment spews forth from one of the contestants, who says that it's about time for pastry chefs to "come forward", as if they're forced to lurk in shadow, and don't have a four hour chunk of time devoted to worshipping them nightly on Food Network. Big, pissy catfights are previewed. Unlike baseball, there is crying in pastry preparation. Joining Gail on the judging panel will be head judge Johnny Iuzzini, Hubert Keller, and someone we've never seen on the panel before, a magazine editor named Dannielle Kyrillos (who unfortunately is introduced by telling someone that there's a party going on in her mouth). The prizes should sound familiar to you: A feature in Food & Wine magazine, a showcase at a food show, a car, and $100,000.

Opening menu. Part of the reason that I didn't contribute much to the Top Chef Season 7 finale is because I was gearing up for this. A dessert premiere plus a birthday potluck at work induced me to make a triple batch of good, old-fashioned chocolate chip cookies. LabRat enjoyed the cookies, but not the news that my stirring arm was exhausted.

The opening credits are oddly bright and neon, bringing a cruise down the Las Vegas strip to mind much more than any dessert. After that little seizure-inducing intro, we catch up with contestants arriving at the City airport. Why don't I identify the city for you? Would that I could. They never tell us, which is supremely weird. Let's meet the crew wandering out into the bright sunshine of Undisclosed Location. Seth Caro is from New York City. He tells us people think he looks like Mark Wahlberg. Yeah, if Mark Wahlberg got Lisa Rinna's lips grafted onto his face. Tania Peterson is a Jewish atheist artist. Let's hope she doesn't confine herself to baking for events that only fit that mold. She seems cool, but I long to fix her hair. Bangs aren't for everyone. A double decker bus swings by to pick them up, along with Erika Davis and Heather Hurlbert, who have just shown up. Heather is a graduate of the Culinary Institute of America, and has won pastry awards. That's awards for pastry, not awards of pastry, although that would be awesome.

At the next gate, the bus picks up Zac Young, Eric Wolitzky, and Malika Ameen. Then, it's off to the bus station to pick up Tim Nugent who talks up his ice creams and gelatos. Gelatoes? Whatever its plural, I'm craving a big ol' scoop of it right now. Stupid ninety degree day in late September. Tim kids that he's been referred to as the Snow Queen.

LabRat: "Because of all the coke I did ten years ago."

In short order, we get another Heather (Heather Chittum), Yigit Pura, and Morgan Wilson. His order of priorities is: job, kid, climbing fake rock walls, and his girlfriend. I hope she's cool with being at the end of that list. He opines that pastry chefs can easily do a savory chef's job, but the converse situation leads to mediocre food at best. Let's test that theory, shall we? Once everyone's settled on the bus, they're joined by Gail and Johnny, who hope the chefs can pull out some artistry and inventiveness. The chefs nod mutely. Gail wastes no time in getting right to the point.

Ugly neon brings us to the first Quickfire Challenge. The chefs will be making their signature desserts. That's fairly straightforward. They'll have a $50 budget, and an hour and a half to get their desserts ready. The winner will score immunity. During the shopping segment, we get a bit more biographical info. Yigit tells us that being a pastry chef involves "preciseness". And communicating in English involves knowing the word "precision". Eric admits that he works in a bakery, but still considers himself a pastry chef. Hey, don't split hairs on my account. A good cinnamon roll makes me just as happy as any truffle could. Erika reminds us that baking requires exact measurements, and in a competition where there are no recipes allowed, that can be nearly impossible. Yeah, but there are basic ratios that bakers use. I'm not saying it won't be challenging; it looks terrifyingly difficult. Just that it's not like the chefs have to remember the exact amount of baking powder that goes into each preparation. Malika overshares that she and her husband are getting a divorce.

Back in the Kitchen, the chefs ooh and aah over all the equipment provided for them, before springing into their prep time. Tania overshares that she and her husband have been trying to get her pregnant for three years. Listen, folks. I wish you all luck in this competition. Truly. But feel free to leave me out of the inner workings of your personal lives. I promise, the very second that your crumbling marriage or your faulty uterus becomes my business, I'll let you know. Zac tells us that Seth is "literally running laps around the Kitchen", and unlike 99% of previous reality show competitors, he actually uses literally correctly. Gold star for him.

About fifteen minutes into the preparations, Gail and Johnny stride in and ask the chefs to stop what they're doing. Twist ahead! The chefs must now take the signature dishes they're working on, and translate them into cupcakes. Naturally, the news hits some people harder than others, because it's a lot easier to turn a regular cake into a cupcake that it is to transform, say, pudding. Once the chefs are turned loose again, the word "fuck" is liberally contributed to the conversation. Morgan says that everyone just crapped their pants. Well, don't serve that. Malika intends to turn meringue into the actual holder to put filling into. I've heard worse ideas. Tim attempts to freeze his semifreddo. Seth hopes his basil, which is his primary ingredient, will adapt well to the new preparation. Time winds down, and cupcakes start hitting the plates. Malika discovers that the oven her meringues were in has had the temperature turned up. I brace myself for a big hissyfit, but if anything, Malika underreacts. It's far too late to do anything about her browned meringues, but it turns out not to matter, as she's caught by the buzzer without having time to fill them.

Gail and Johnny go down the line. Tania has made a chocolate cupcake filled with chicory mousse, with mesquite flour and a creme fraiche caramel. Yes, please. Heatherc (that's Heather C.) has made a carrot cupcake with creme fraiche cream cheese icing, and fried carrots on top. Spew. In news unrelated to that monstrosity, she's got some sort of Band-aid or patch on her forehead that juts down onto the bridge of her nose. Zac has turned a deconstructed lemon meringue into a vanilla bean cupcake, with lemon curd and a blood orange marshmallow. Danielle has a chocolate cupcake with a mint chip filling and a toasted meringue. Did people just not have time to make proper icings or are meringues really this overused? Eric has a devil's food cupcake with a coffee buttermilk icing. Tim has attempted to make a frozen pistachio semifreddo. Johnny allows that it's very tasty, even as it completely fails as a cupcake. Seth has a steamed Malaysian coconut cake, with a basil buttercream and candied pine nuts. I would not enjoy that at all, but have to admit that it's far and away the most creative thing I've seen so far. Morgan's got a dark chocolate souffle cake, with a tangerine slice and caramel buttercream. Malika's got nothing.

Results. Malika understandably kicks off the bottom three, and is unsurprisingly joined by Tim. Zac is the only person in the bottom three who actually made a cupcake, which he notes enthusiastically. Johnny describes Zac's marshmallow texture as "horrible". Ouch. Now, to the good news. Seth's cupcake was herbaceous and well-adapted from the original idea. Tania's cupcake was moist and had a good flavor combination. Heatherc's fried carrot topping was contemporary, unique, and disgusting. I contributed one of those adjectives. I'll let you puzzle out which. The winner of the first Quickfire and its attendant immunity is... Seth. He's disingenuously modest about it before telling us that Harold (who he's worked with) won the first challenge, then went on to win the entire season, so why shouldn't be Seth be destined for the same? Of course, the problem with that reasoning is that Harold won the first Elimination Challenge, not the first Quickfire, so perhaps Seth should avoid that hubris until the round is over, lest he wind up looking foolish. I'm sure that would never happen, though.

Speaking of the first Elimination Challenge, let's get to it. The chefs will be working with the most popular dessert ingredient in the business. I speak, of course, of chocolate. Two guys haul in a table stacked with it. It looks quite yummy, as does one of the guys hauling the table. LabRat is too busy grumbling that white chocolate isn't really chocolate at all to bother noticing hot dudes. Chocolate may be popular, but it's also very temperamental, so the chefs have their work cut out for them. At least the challenge itself is fairly simple: Make a luxurious chocolate dessert. The desserts will be served to fifty diners, including Jacques Torres, a luminary in the world of chocolate. The chefs will have four hours to put everything together, then one hour to plate and serve.

The chefs are dismissed for the day, and head back to their lofts. I hear Undisclosed City has lovely living spaces. Beds are haggled over. Thermostat settings are discussed. Heatherc has graduated from a flesh-colored bandage to a white covering that is threatening to swallow her face. The line to have her prepare food for you forms at the left. Zac loudly proclaims that he needs his own bathroom, because he's got "bathroom issues". Wow, oversharing AND gross. Nice combo.

The next day, the chefs return to the Kitchen for their four hours of prep. Morgan adds whisky to his dough. Heatherh (Heather H.) and Yigit discover that they have similar techniques, which makes Yigit anxious, as Heatherh clearly has some training and experience on her side. Morgan burns a tray of his flan. He does his best to work around it, interviewing that "failure is not an option". Sure it is. It's just not an attractive one. Zac feels like he has a lot to prove after his poor Quickfire performance. Eric mechanically folds his batter for minutes on end. Johnny stops by to... Ptimewaste? Is that applicable here? Let's see if his walkthrough is the least bit relevant. And, no. It's just as pointless as ever. Tania tackles her white chocolate mousse last, and finds out that the texture is all wrong, almost like hummus. Yikes. It's too late to correct, and she hopes that the flavors will pull her through.

Time quickly runs out, and the chefs move their desserts into the Dining Room. Before you know it, diners are streaming in and chowing down. The judges stop by Morgan's table first. In addition to Gail, Johnny, and Dannielle, Jacques Torres is present as promised. Morgan has made chocolate fried pie, with a milk chocolate bourbon flan. Heatherc's got a bittersweet chocolate torte, with a mini whoopie pie with marshmallow fluff that she's made. Tasting. Morgan's flan has separated, and the dish as a whole does not get positive feedback. Heatherc's dessert has the first whoopie pie Jacques Torres has ever had. I confess that I haven't had them, either. If we're aiming for that sort of combination, we tend to go more for moon pies or ice cream sandwiches around these parts. And by "these parts", I mean "me". Jacques says that Heatherc would have done better to put a citrus flavor into the sandwich cream, rather than the marshmallow.

Eric has a brownie lightly spiced with ancho chili, accented with ginger and cinnamon. It looks fantastic. Heatherh has made a dark chocolate mousse torte, with a caramel/chocolate/Grand Marnier sauce. Zac blows "disco dust" (which is edible glitter) all over his dessert. Along with a fine spray of spittle, no doubt. His dessert is several differing textures of chocolate. It's very sculptural. He calls it a chocolate fondant "brownie sundae". Tasting. The judges enjoy Zac's plate, but Jacques calls him on blowing all over his food. Eric's brownie is moist and rich, but Jacques doesn't think it's very decadent. Boo! I suppose that was one of the challenge parameters, but I don't have LabRat's sweet tooth, and so that spiced brownie was a lot more appealing to me than some chocolate cake with chocolate sauce, finished with chocolate dust and chocolate whipped cream, to be eaten with a chocolate fork. Heatherh's dessert is very elegant, and extremely tasty to boot.

Tania has an orange blossom/honey ganache and a flourless chocolate torte topped with an Earl Grey/white chocolate mousse. She admits up front that her mousse's texture isn't ideal, but she's happy with her flavors. Once the judges leave her table, her mistakes get the better of her, and she surreptitiously dabs away some tears. The other chefs catch it, and Malika pulls her in for a hug. Aw. Danielle has made a chocolate free form tart with whipped cream, hazelnut brittle, and some banana. You know, I like all those ingredients, but her dessert doesn't look good. It's goopy and unappealing. Zac agrees with me in interview. Tasting. Dannielle (that's judge-Dannielle, not contestant-Danielle -- you can tell by the stupid spelling judge-Dannielle's parents have saddled her with) finds it takes a lot of work to get a proper bite of Danielle's dessert. Jacques thinks the components are boring, but they come together to form something interesting. Tania's mousse is grainy as promised, but Dannielle likes the shape (which is a pretty teardrop) and the candied kumquat on top. Johnny remains unimpressed.

Seth has got a Madras curry and chocolate palette, with a raspberry gelee. The internet is not being very helpful on "palette", so I'll just report that it appears to be a fudge-like brownie. There are lots of additional little surprises, like liquid nitrogen-shattered raspberries and candied rose. Yigit has made a flourless chocolate genoise, with a custardless ice cream. Wow, that sure does sound luxurious! Tasting. Yigit's rubbery ice cream is lacking something. Ooh, I have a guess! Is it custard? Dannielle calls Seth's dessert a "pug" in that it's tiny, but powerful. Johnny enjoys the curry.

Tim has a milk chocolate ganache, mixed with bittersweet chocolate ganache, chocolate cake, chocolate whipped cream, and cocoa nibs on top. I just went into diabetic shock. Malika has got a bittersweet chocolate layer cake, with braised cherries and cocoa nib nougatine (brown nougat). Johnny congratulates her for finishing this time, aiming for friendly and coming off as condescending. Erika's voice rises four octaves as she describes her chocolate banana caramel crunch bar.

Panny: "I don't know nothing 'bout birthin' no babies, Miss Scarlet!"

Tasting. "The crunch Erika put on the bottom is, like, 'Pow Pow!' It wakes you up," Dannielle jabbers. Yeah, I'm not feeling this lady. That could prove to be a problem, since I'm being asked to consider her opinion as expert. She seems nice and all, but fairly inept so far. Right now, all I'm hearing is a college sophomore they pulled off the quad to judge a dessert competition. Tim's cake is a bit dense, but the flavors are all good. Malika's dessert screams chocolate. Service winds down.

Interstitial. Zac is either stupid or being deliberately obtuse when he jumps down Danielle's throat for an offhand comment she makes about how she feels like barfing after eating too much chocolate, taking it as a slam against his dessert. Either way, it's obnoxious. Shut up, Zac. You're not a quarter as cute as you think you are.

We enter into the fret 'n sweat on an establishing shot of a street sign that reads "Vine". Could our Mystery Location have been identified? Are we in Los Angeles? Until they say so, I say we just go on assuming we could be anywhere. Gail comes in, and summons Seth, Heatherh, and Zac to Judges' Table. Morgan doesn't know the protocol as to who gets called first in this iteration of the show, but sniffs that his dessert was much better than the three people who just got called. Apparently, he's the only one who thinks so, as the summoned chefs learn that they're the top three.

Zac immediately begins weeping. Jeez. He'll be fun as television fodder, but man, would he ever be exhausting to spend time with. He makes a rambling, inapt comparison between making dessert and giving birth. The judges wait patiently through this twaddle before telling him that his dessert demonstrated a lot of different textures and techniques. Dannielle's "party in my mouth" comment is mercifully gotten out of the way before Jacques admonishes Zac for blowing the glitter into his food. Heatherh's dessert was aesthetically pleasing and well-balanced. Seth didn't rely on immunity, and everyone enjoyed the curry flavoring in his dessert. Seth says he's shocked that all four judges liked it. I write that as "says he's shocked" instead of "is shocked", because I have yet to hear a statement come out of his mouth that doesn't seem forced, couched, and designed to fit a personality type that he's trying way too hard to craft for himself. I wish Seth and I were off to a better start, because his food is really quite interesting. If he lays off his posturing and focuses on his desserts, we can turn this distressing situation around.

Jacques gets the privilege of announcing the first ever Elimination Challenge winner for Just Desserts, and that honor goes to... Heatherh. Seth finally has a genuine reaction. He is not pleased. He stands stiffly, arms crossed, eyes blinking, as Heatherh and Zac share a hug. Heatherh is thrilled and surprised to have won. I'm pleased for her win, even if her dessert didn't thrill me as much as a couple of others. Probably because unlike her fellow winning chefs, she appears to care more about her food than her image. Gail puts her concerned face on, and asks the winning chefs to send back some of their colleagues. Heatherh is warmly congratulated back in the Kitchen. Seth shares the bad news as quickly as he can. The judges would like to see Danielle, Tania, and Morgan. "Whatever," Morgan spits. I'm fully convinced that he's that above-it-all, and isn't seething. Also, I was born yesterday.

The three losing chefs trudge in to Losers' Table. Strange how one of the Quickfire top three is in the losing group now, and vice versa. Danielle is asked why she thinks she's there, and she admits she doesn't know, saying she liked her flavors and textures. Johnny tells her that her dessert was exceedingly difficult to eat, and that it exploded all over the plate the moment it was touched with a fork. She explains her free form tart concept, and Jacques points out that if the dessert was taken layer by layer, the flavors didn't work anymore. Tania is obviously in the bottom for her mousse's off-putting texture. She says as much, throwing in an "At the end of the day.." DRINK! Gail liked the chocolate layer under the mousse, but there wasn't enough of it to counterbalance the mistakes.

Morgan tells the judges he thinks he had a delicious array of temperatures and textures. Johnny asks if the flan was supposed to have two layers. It did not, which means it separated. That's not a good thing. Morgan says he noticed that, but was hoping the judges wouldn't. There's a fresh approach: "I was hoping you'd be idiots." Dannielle thinks the flan brought a jarring contrast to the overall dessert. At least, that's a concise version of what she says. I know she's new, but she needs some work. Morgan, who two minutes ago said that his dessert was better than the winners', and two seconds ago said that he was hoping the judges would overlook an obvious mistake, now says that he only included the flan because he didn't want to be judged on not attempting enough. Pick a shitty defense and stick with it. The chefs are dismissed.

Back in the Kitchen, Morgan doesn't want to talk with the safe chefs about what the judges hated about his dessert. I suppose I can't fault him for that, although he's unnecessarily smarmy about it. Deliberations. Johnny says Morgan's biggest problem was himself. I'll say. He tried to do too much, and wound up spreading himself too thin. His dessert was unfocused, and didn't concentrate enough on chocolate. Johnny thinks Tania had plenty of time to remake her mousse. I don't see how he could know that. Her Earl Grey didn't lend enough flavor, and the overall dessert was far too timid. Danielle was too defensive. Eh, I didn't really get that sense. Her dessert didn't work at all if it was eaten as intended. The judges reach a decision.

Elimination. All three losing chefs failed at featuring chocolate. Morgan has technique, but took on too much. Danielle should have taken more time to construct her dessert. Tania should have corrected her mistakes. The first chef eliminated is... Tania. Please pack your tools and go. Wait, really? The woman who admitted up front that she made a technical error, and thus theoretically knows how to correct for it next time goes home over the guy who reached for any excuse short of "A wizard did it" to explain his crappy dessert? That mousse must have been truly wretched. Or they just can't eliminate the season's designated douchebag this early. Tania thanks the judges for the opportunity. In her final interview, she acknowledges that being the first to go is generally accepted as the worst thing that can happen. It's true, and I wish she could have stuck around longer. She cries a bit, and says that although she's totally bummed out, she knows she's got a fantastic husband who supports her waiting for her back home. Bon voyage, Tania. You got a raw deal. Here's hoping you get knocked up soon.

Overall Grade: B