Top Chef: Just Desserts
Top Chef: Just Desserts is an American reality competition show, spun off from Top Chef. It premiered on the cable television network Bravo on September 15, 2010. Top Chef: Just Desserts features pastry chefs competing in a series of culinary challenges, focusing on pastries and desserts. The show is produced by Magical Elves Productions, the same company that created Top Chef and Project Runway, and distributed by Bravo and Tiger Aspect USA. It is hosted by Gail Simmons, with head judge Johnny Iuzzini, head pastry chef at Jean-Georges. Other judges include Hubert Keller, owner of restaurant Fleur de Lys and a Top Chef Masters finalist, and Dannielle Kyrillos, "an entertaining expert and Editor-at-Large of DailyCandy".
Episodes
For their first elimination challenge, the chefs are tasked with creating a showpiece based on a popular fairy tale.
To celebrate the Los Angeles Philharmonic, the chefs must create a cake experience in three movements to be served to the symphony members and patrons after their performance.
For the Elimination Challenge, the remaining 12 cheftestants create the ultimate “dessert-scape” spread for 'The Real Housewives of Beverly Hills' star Lisa Vanderpump.
It’s the 40th anniversary of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory, and to celebrate, the chefs will work as one team to create a Pure Imagination Room.
The chefs must beat the heat as they make frozen treats suitable for cooling off on a hot summer day.
The remaining pastry chefs will be given a “License to Ill” as they raid the first ever “Top Chef Beastie Boys Pantry,” where they must use the ingredients, named after the band’s popular songs, to create a Beastie Boys-inspired dessert appropriate for a street art event.
This week’s Quickfire Challenge has the chefs selecting perfect pairings of coffee and donuts, while the Elimination Challenge will result in death… by chocolate. The cheftestants must create a chocolate showpiece under a veil of secrecy.
This week’s Elimination Challenge has the remaining chefs clowning around at the Top Chef Carnival where they have to upgrade classic carnival cuisine into something suitable for a fine dining audience.
Don’t judge a book by its cover in this week’s penultimate episode as the chefs must create a dessert that tastes like one, but doesn’t look the way it tastes.
It all comes down to this -- the final three chefs will compete in a Top Chef version of the Prestigious Meilleurs Ouvriers de France Competition -- which is the World Series of Competitions in the pastry world. Only one can take the title of Top Chef: Just Desserts.
