After a poor performance in Luke Nguyen invention test, Elise, Zoe and Elena faced a pressure test set by Citi Chef of the Year, Ross Lusted.
With the power apron in play, Anastasia chose Ross’ perfumed stone fruit dessert over his chicken dumplings as the dish for the contestants to cook.
Diving into her first pressure test, Zoe took a risk and decided to halve the sorbet recipe. She also stumbled on her syrup, which had over-reduced and had a thick and sticky consistency.
The pressure built for Elena, also in her first pressure test, as she struggled to multi-task. She finally broke down after becoming overwhelmed.
Usually in her element with desserts, Elise was flustered and stumbled early with a lumpy and dense peach biscuit batter. Without time to re-make it, she strained it and hoped for the best.
In the tasting, the judges thought Elena’s sorbet was fantastic, her wafer thin, crisp and delicious and her syrup very good. But cutting her fruit early was a mistake and the dish lacked freshness.
Zoe struggled with her syrup, which had become like caramel. The judges noted that the syrup issue meant the dish lacked its namesake perfume, while her over-churned sorbet had a floury texture.
The judges thought Elise’s biscuits should have been finer and her butter tasted ashy and grainy. But she nailed the syrup and her sorbet was great.
The judges decided Zoe and Elise had both made the most mistakes. While Zoe had the best peach butter and her biscuits were good, her caramel syrup and sorbet let her down. These two elements were vital to deliver on the promise of the dish and Zoe’s mistakes were enough to send her home.
Zoe has plans to launch a chocolate business called Off the Wagon and is developing a cookbook based on her Greek Cypriot family traditions.
