Yesterday’s Purple team comes in for the Pressure Test
today.
Eric says he’s never dealt with pressure and says he is up against
fearless cooks (this will be proved false by the number of times people will
say they are “terrified” this episode).
Andy, who is upbeat as always on an elimination day - asks
how everyone is feeling. Sabina says “Whohoo!” like James Bond would to his
torturer and Andy has been successfully shut up. But not for long for he is talking again
(Damn it!) and giving the contestants profound nuggets of wisdom i.e. today’s
pressure test is all about dealing with pressure. Conor looks like he is seriously
contemplating getting a “No shit Sherlock” tattoo on his face.
Turns out today’s pressure test is set by Jock – and he
reveals 2 dishes. Both look very similar – both are tarts – one sweet and one
savoury. The contestants have to choose the one they want to make. This choice is idiotic because tempering
chocolate is significantly more difficult than making a sauce or a brick
pastry.
Conor is very happy with this as normally you never get a
choice. He and Therese pick the sweet one because they are suicidal, while
Eric, Maja, Sabina and Kishwar take the savoury one. Just like Game of thrones, whenever some
contestant gets happy, you can be sure the judges will kill off a fan
favourite fuck things up i.e. innovate on format.
Jock now says, the lesson is how to deal with pressure, and
switches the dishes! Now Therese and Conor have to make the savoury tart and
the others have to make the sweet tart. This is a dick move of such immense
proportions that the contestants can do nothing but laugh at themselves for
thinking they would gain anything by being in this competition.
The gantry is incredulous at this cruel move. Delusional Mel
thinks they are thinking “Oh no he didn’t!” whereas the gantry is actually
thinking “How hard would it be to land a flying dropkick from here?”
I just do not understand why they come up with these bright
ideas only when survival is on the line. Experiment in immunity challenges no?
The contestants taste the dishes they did not want to cook.
For some reason Eric is stupidly happy and cannot stop eating – he’s actually
excited about going home and getting the fuck away from this hellhole.
These challenges remind me of when in S4, the contestants
had to cook the perfect onion ring and volunteer to get their steak taken out
of a foil and cut open to decide if it was medium rare – and this sent people
home. The show-runners have basically gone back 9 years by setting such a
stupid challenge.
The poor cooks start cooking.
Maja’s strategy is to get on with it and she has not read
the whole recipe. This cannot end well.
Eric is reading everything very, very closely – and he also
explains the science behind tempering. So he seems to be in a good place
mentally.
At this point, Sabina doesn’t seem to give a fuck about this
competition and is just doing what she can and smiling through it. Also since she is not cooking fish today, simply
getting out of this challenge alive is enough for her to treat as a great
success.
Therese and Conor seem to have got the easier dish but both
are being super methodical (par for course for Therese, waaaaay off character
for Conor). Both are confused about which disgusting part of the yabbie needs to
be removed and which one needs to left in
- Conor shows more courage by tasting and deciding the right disgusting
thing to throw, Therese takes a chance and hopes she has not got it wrong.
Desserter Dan[1]
is again super happy and excited and talkative on the balcony, while everyone
else is concerned for their friends navigating this garbage challenge. He is
also putting some terrible pun – I cannot wait for this idiot to get
eliminated.
Maja is way ahead as expected since she has not read the
recipe and just started cooking – so I am certain at least one disaster is
coming.
Therese as expected has removed the wrong disgusting part
from her yabbie and now has to do it again.
Everyone is done tempering their chocolate and put theirs in
the fridge.
Tart Nazi Tombot says Eric’s tempered chocolate tart shell
looks decent as does Maja’s but is worried about Sabina and Kishwar’s tart shells
which look super thin. He is also worried about Conor’s brick pastry tart shell
which is … erm … thick as a brick[2]
and can taste dough-ey.
Kishar says she’s going to make this work – as if anything
in this nonsense cook is in her control.
Sabina is frustrated that in the time she spent tempering chocolate, she
could have made several savoury elements.
In the middle of all this, while the contestants are stressing
the fuck out, Mel is stealing someone’s chocolate and telling everyone in the
gantry how good caramel chocolate is.
Andy, not to be outdone in the Read-The-Fucking-Room Olympics,
informs the contestants taking part in this thing called a pressure test, that they are feeling the pressure. Because
none of the contestants had noticed that.
Maja’s crumb is burnt. And Conor is now trolling Jock –
which is the one and only positive moment from today’s show.
Eric is stressing like anything as he attempts to get his
tart shells out of the moulds. Depinder is coaching him from the gantry – he is
getting frustrated that he will soon be allowed to operate on human beings but
cannot take a fucking piece of chocolate out of a mould – and starts smashing
the tins. Now everyone on the gantry is helpfully yelling at him so that he
will calm down. He finally does manage to control his temper and gets it out of
the tin.
Sabina is so stressed and frustrated that she is seeing mythical
creatures walking around in the kitchen – no, not a smart version of Andy, but
unicorns. She, Maja and Kishwar are all trying desperately to get their shells
out of the moulds. They are all following Eric’s strategy of bashing the shit
out of their shells. Finally they don’t
get their tart shells out. All of them are devastated. Classy Eric taking a cue
from Andy rubs it in everyone’s face that he got his tart shells out.
Therese and Conor both have proper tart shells and all their
elements. So they are almost certainly safe.
Jock makes fun of everyone saying “It’s just a tart” – am imagining
him in an operating theatre with Eric saying it’s just a human body.
Now even the judges agree that this pressure test was a
stupid idea, but Mel blames Jock for this entirely.
The Tasting
Therese and Conor are safe – both of them have all their
elements and neither seems to have tried to poison the judges.
Eric is also certainly safe since he is the only one who got
the tempered shells out.
Kishwar, Maja and Sabina don’t have tart shells and all try
to present some plated variant of the dish.
Kishwar is hoping the flavours save her. For once, she is
crying for the right reasons i.e. the staggering terrible-ness of this
challenge – so I can’t judge her for that. Her cake and salted caramel standout
and the dish had balance.
Sabina’s dish also has good flavour overall. Cake and caramel
is very good again.
Maja’s salted caramel is not bitter enough, the dish is too
sweet and the balance is lost. She’s going home for this. Shame on her for
wanting to cook yabbies.
Mel pointlessly thanks Maja for throwing everything she has
into this competition even though it has all been for no reason.
What a dumpster fire of an episode. Let’s hope the next one
is decent.
[2] I understand if you want to stop reading and burn your device at this stage
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