Reprinted with permission from www.healthywaytocook.com

Episode 5

There are eighteen cooks on a yellow school bus, headed for a team challenge at an elementary school. The cooks will be divided into two teams and each team must cook a meal for three hundred hungry kids with only one hour and forty-five minutes of prep time that includes a protein, a starch, and a dessert. Because Jessie and Jordon were the top two contestants from the last challenge, they are the team captains and get to choose their teammates in a schoolyard pick. Malcolm and Kathy get selected last, which is giving me flashbacks.

The red team (headed by Jessie) is preparing chicken teriyaki with corn and a strawberry crumble. The blue team (headed by Jordon) selects turkey meatballs with pasta, green beans, and an apple crisp. Gordon Ramsey notes that at two meatballs per kid, the team has to roll six hundred meatballs. But, Joe points out that kids eat with their eyes, and chicken teriyaki isn’t a very colorful meal.

The blue team quickly realizes that they won’t get their meatballs done in time and rushes to turn their meatballs into a meat sauce. Meanwhile, the teriyaki sauce is salty, so the red team adds pineapples to sweeten it up.

Service is chaos, with both teams struggling to get the food on the plate for the endless stream of elementary school kids who will be voting on their favorite dish. The blue team’s pasta and meat sauce is a big hit, but their green beans are barely cooked. The red team’s chicken teriyaki goes over better than expected, and their dessert is superb.

After counting three hundred little heads, Gordon determines that the winner is the red team, with 58% of the vote.  That means the blue team will face a Pressure Test (which should be called a Pressure Cooker), where at least one person will be eliminated from the competition. The blue team immediately starts blaming it on Jordon, because the rules of Reality Television say that it’s always the team leader’s fault, no matter what. But, there’s a twist! Only six of the nine cooks on the blue team will compete in the Pressure Test, and Jordon gets to decide which three cooks are safe. And extra twisty twist! Jordon can choose himself! And he does, of course. I mean, you’d have to either be crazy or a saint not to, right? He also selects Howard and James.

For the Pressure Test, the cooks must bake a cheesecake in ninety minutes. Hard, but not impossible. With two minutes to go, fruit starts flambéing, berries are arranged, and powdered sugar is sifted. Krissi’s cheesecake is not attractive. Her cheesecake fell, and she globbed raspberry on the top. But it’s light and fluffy, with a nice thin crust. Jonny made a pineapple cheesecake that Joe calls “a lumberjack trying to do a pirouette.” Kathy made a cheesecake with blueberry and blackberry compote that Graham enjoys. Eddie baked a vanilla bean cheesecake with mixed berry compote that is delicious, but a mess because the juice from the berries bled into the cake. Savannah made a salted caramel cheesecake that looks like happiness. Unfortunately, there’s too much topping and not enough cake. The judges hate it, a lot. Adriana prepared a guava cheesecake. Gordon recalls seeing a can of guava paste, and says the canned guava tastes weird and processed.

The judges tell Eddie, Krissi, Kathy, and Jonny that they are safe. Between Savannah’s overly sweet sugar mound and Adriana’s tropics-in-a-can, the judges send Adriana home.

Episode 6

It’s Mystery Box time! And the remaining cooks will be preparing food alongside Gordon himself. The box contains black cod, black and white sesame seeds, shitake mushrooms, baby beets, ginger, cauliflower, rice wine vinegar, soy, and miso paste. The cooks have sixty minutes to cook a dish using all of some of those ingredients. Gordon surveys the scene and pours a cup of tea. With thirty minutes gone, Chef Ramsey has yet to begin preparation on his own dish.

Gordon made sesame seed crusted black cod with caramelized cauliflower and a miso sauce. Everyone else, however, did not prepare perfection. The judges find one cook who plated raw fish, and not in a sushi kind of way. Howard. He prepared (raw) black cod with shitake mushrooms. Joe tosses it in the trash. For the top three dishes, the judges first select James’s black codd with shitake mushroom salad and a miso vinaigrette. Next is Bethy and her black cod with sesame seed crust and caramelized beets. The final top dish is from Luca, who put an outstanding glaze on his fish in a pan seared black cod with shitake mushroom and snap peas.

Luca wins the Mystery Box challenge

And the winner is Luca, who is safe from elimination and will get an advantage in the Elimination Test. Luca must decide which item the contestants will prepare in the challenge—cookies, cupcakes, or layer cake. He chooses cupcakes, and this is a pretty good indication that cupcakes are officially over. Then, a twist! Luca gets to remove one mixer. As he circles the cooking stations like a shark, he settles on Jordan because he saved himself in the last challenge. Fair enough.

So how did they do? Howard is up first. He baked vanilla bean cupcakes with white chocolate cream frosting. Joe calls it light and airy and gives him a “good job.” Malcolm made buttermilk cupcakes with rum banana cream. Gordon calls it “strange,” “weird,” and “gross.” Next is Bimi with vanilla cupcake with vanilla and chocolate whipped cream frosting.  Graham is loving his cupcakes and calls it “great.” According to Jordon, “Kathy’s cupcakes look like a neon tripping monkey took a sh*t on top of them.” Underneath the glowing colors, it’s a vanilla cupcake with chocolate and peanut butter on the bottom and Joe does not find them tasty. Bethy baked three different kinds—banana foster, raspberry lime, and almond chocolate cake. They are gorgeous, moist, and Gordon calls them “delicious.” Jessie has tiny little disappointing cupcake pellets. She baked vanilla bean cupcakes with hazelnuts and chocolate coffee cupcakes with cream cheese frosting. Joe is disappointed and Gordon finds them to be dry. Lastly, Jordon. He baked vanilla bean with mascarpone frosting. By hand. Gordon invites Luca up to taste the cupcakes first, and Luca calls them delicious. Gordon agrees.

The judges choose two standout cooks who will become team captains in the next challenge. The first is Bimi, and the next is Bethy. The worst cupcakes were from Malcolm, Kathy, and Jessie. The judges tell a blubbering Kathy that she’s safe, which means it’s between Jessie and Malcolm. They decide to send Malcolm home, which earns him a giant bro hug from Jonny.

Of this week’s Bottom 3, Malcolm is sent home

Next week, firemen!

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