Tag: chocolate

MasterChef – Tues, June 28 – Heston’s chocolate challenge

Heston inspires the contestants to create a three-course dessert spread using only the food of the Gods: chocolate.
The least impressive team will face the elimination challenge.

The six contestants file in past the black-aproned losers (shame, shame, shame – where’s Sister Unella when you need her?). Their lips have been sewn together so they do not taint the ears of the cooking god Heston with their fangirly utterings.
They are at Melbourne Uni and are split into teams of two via a lucky dip of milk, dark and white (it’s not a real chocolate – stop calling it that, people!) chocolate.
Elise and Theresa get white; Intense Matt and Glowing Elena milk; and Harry and Mimi dark. They have to create a three-course dessert menu for 30 online competition winners; each team cooks a course. And, thankfully, none of this mucking around with savoury desserts.
They are led into a massive underground carpark (and Matt Preston gives us the movie fun fact part of Mad Max was filmed) where their cooking stations and a long dining table have been set up.


Theresa and Elise are doing a caramelised white choc crumble base with a coconut bar and chocolates with raspberry coulis and passionfruit centres, with mascarpone ice cream to offset the sweetness. “Hopefully the coolness from the frozen ice cream will be enough to balance out the dish,” says Elise. Yeah, I always prefer frozen ice cream to that unfrozen variety. George isn’t around tonight (ill effects from eating pea and ham ice cream, perhaps? Pop a Swisse, George) so we won’t call Heston H any more. H is worried it’s too much – and too sweet.

The milk chocolate team starts off and GE wants to make a Japanese garden with a green tea jelly pond. IM’s mind is blown by her concept. Elena says she’ll work to ensure the green tea jelly is not too bitter. GE says there will be scented choc pebbles of raspberry and yuzu curd and then she utters the two words we’ve all been waiting for: liquid nitrogen. IM is definitely sous chef on this one but he does decide to add basil to the raspberry soz.

The dark team of Harry and Mimi are allowed to start and Harry wants to make a forest floor with a chocolate log and cherry coulis. The words “vapour jug” are written on his plan for the dish. Sounds speccy but surely we’ve seen this forest log thing before? Let’s hope he has better luck tempering his choc than other contestants have in the past.

Elise is actually the first one to go for the liquid nitrogen, to freeze some domes. Because, you know, domes have never given anyone grief before.

Elena is talking again about her green tea jelly – I’m worried now that it’s getting so much airtime. But it does make me want to make a frog in a pond. Dark team seem to be going well with their choc log and mousse filling but over at white choc team, Theresa – who’s definitely the leader – is realising making a dessert with so many teeny chocolates that need to be individually hand dipped was a rookie move.
IM gets on to the nitro next and he also gets to use giant tweezers. He tastes one of his pebbles and is delighted with the result. Karmen must be at home cursing that she missed this one (although I can’t really imagine her uttering anything other than a soft “darn”).
Harry is working on the soil for his forest floor and pops a packet of bough biscuits in the food processor. The look like Granitas. Bought biscuits – is this MKR all of a sudden? He’s also adding pop rocks – can’t have a dessert with them these days.
Gaz tells Theresa and Elise to get a wriggle on and they try to make nitro ice cream but it’s not working mixing by hand The liquid nitrogen ice cream shop here in Adelaide uses KitchenAid mixers to whip its icy goodness, so perhaps they should try that. Where’s Heston to give them a few tips? Outside giving the black-aproned losers a flogging?
They give up and decide to use it as a cream instead, even though it could be too sweet. Lesson learnt: Always make your ice cream first.

Elena has made a black sesame crumb soil for her Japanese garden and Harry is carefully lifting his chocolate logs out of the acetate. With five minutes to service the white choc team starts to plate up. The coconut bar going on top of the crumb looks like a chicken nugget drizzled with mayo. They are still dipping chocolates and quenelling cream (sadly, Elise did not get her frozen ice cream after all) with one minute to go. “We’re just chucking stuff everywhere,” says Elise – always good for a blunt quote.
Service starts and Elise has to chase after a waiter who’s grabbed an unfinished plate. Run, Forrest, run, with your box of chocolates dessert.

The judges taste


Theresa and Elise’s “Life is Like a Box of Chocolates” dessert: And, of course, Heston’s is the only plate at the table missing the raspberry. What producer noticed that and switched plates? Heston likes the caramelised soil and cream but Matt says it’s all too sweet.


IM and GE’s Japanese garden pond: They introduce the dish and are about to walk away when Cranky Pants says: “Can I ask a question – it’s not quite what I thought you were going to put together on the plate. Is that how you set out to plate it up?” Elena – on a high from completing a tricky cook – is nonplussed. Apparently Gaz was expecting more sesame crumb. Please, can we get at least one new judge next year, MasterChef – I don’t want to watch a judge who talks down a dish in front of diners who must be thrilled to be there, even before they’ve tasted it. Does he make such comments for all the teams and we they just don’t make the edit? Matt is not fond of the presentation and is worried about the green tea jelly. The judges love the rocks filled with raspberry and yuzu. The jelly didn’t work – it’s a bit better and Heston says they should have used gelatine instead of agar.


Mimi and Harry’s Black Forest floor: It looks very cool with its berry coulis and plump blackberries. So, these gice will be the winners. Matt notes the diners were excited to see the dish. “It’s a proper chocolate dessert,” says Gaz. “It’s a happy dessert.” Heston doesn’t really say much, that we see at least. Is he being paid by the word?

The judges decide
Harry and Mimi win – and deservedly do. However, keep in mind they had the advantages of getting dark chocolate (more suited to the palate of adult foodies) and the extra planning time while they waited their turn to cook.
They are obviously tossing up between the white and milk teams, and here are the black-aproned ones to observe the going on and administer the ceremonial beating to the latest losers. In the end, an overly sweet dessert beats a bitter jelly and GE and IM are in the elimination round. Noooooooooooo!
So, thus far in elimination we have IM, GE, Heather, Trent, Chloe and Brett. A few our faves in there, but if it’s a savoury challenge they should be right.

Tomorrow night
It’s another pop-up challenge and it looks like they have to make dishes using recipes from ye olden days – and not the Women’s Weekly Cookbook olden days. One person will go through to the Thursday night elimination.



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