Tonight, the contestants entered the kitchen to find a Christmas wonderland and as Mel and Amaury welcomed the contestants, Curtis Stone walked in with a sack full of presents. Playing Santa, Cutis gifted each contestant a fruit that had to feature in their Christmas inspired dish.
It wasn’t all tidings of comfort and joy through, as it was revealed that two contestants would soon be eliminated.
Kay-Lene was gifted bananas and stepped way out of her comfort zone by baking a cake. Despite a precarious moment when it nearly collapsed, Amaury said her cake visually captured Christmas and praised her speed and skill. Curtis acknowledged how hard it was to add banana into a Christmas dessert.
Reynold had to highlight passionfruit and decided to make a Christmas bauble that required a perfect sugar glass sphere. The decision to play his pin or not was based entirely on the success of this element and while the first two failed, the third looked great, keeping the pin in place. He went on to coat the sphere in chocolate and began filling it with cream which proved much too thick, splitting it in two. Not letting his pride get in the way, he immediately pulled the pin from his chest in the last moments of the cook and retreated to the safety of the gantry.
Gifted strawberries, Andy took on a family-sized traditional trifle that reflected what Christmas meant to him. The risk, however, was in the presentation, or lack thereof. In recent cooks, Amaury has pushed Andy to elevate his presentation to show mastery of more than one skill set but Andy still presented his trifle in the traditional way. Upon tasting, Mel noted that the dish looked like a festive good time, but with so much going on and in comparison to the other desserts presented, Andy created one of the two bottom desserts.
With blackberries to highlight, Anna wanted to show the judges her softer side by creating a trifle with a Greek twist that represented her family. While it looked festive and the judges enjoyed the flavour of olive oil sorbet, the frozen gel element was not enjoyed by any of the judges. Plus, on a day when the judges were expecting festive generosity, Anna fell short by serving just one champagne glass of dessert to be shared by the three, resulting in a lack of consistency in the eating experience.
