Previously...
Before Julia the Cook,
there was Julia the Spy.
It's curry, and cardamom, and coriander.
Either it's gonna b something else or a schnitze.
The winner this week, Dustin.
It was jaw-droppingly beautiful.
The cook leaving Julia's kitchen is...
Elena.
Julia's voice was always in my house.
If you're gonna hav a sets of fear of failure,
you're just never gonna lear how to cook.
Eight passionate home cooks are about to do
- the impossible. - Get cooking.
They'll cook alongside their hero...
- Delicious. - Yummy.
Who also started as a home cook.
I just love to muck around in the kitchen.
And found her calling later in life.
Welcome to The French Chef. I'm Julia Child.
One cook will wi the ultimate prize,
a three-month all-expense paid trip
to cooking school in Paris.
- What? - Yeah.
All in their ques to prove...
All you need is a little bit of imagination.
Who has the skill...
- Woo-hoo. - - to win...
That's time.
The Julia Child Challenge.
I honestly cannot believe I'm still here,
thinking about Julia all the time, asking her
to help me, you know, guide me through this
because I wanna make to the finale.
I feel good about last week I did held my own.
And then having the judges really like what I put out,
that's a win in my book.
I'm Julia Child.
Today, I'm going to show you
how to make a real French omelette.
It's not just a breakfast in France
since they never eat them for breakfast at all
because they only eat cafe-au-lait and croissant,
but in France what you use an omelette for
is lunch or supper.
- Hi, hi, hi. - Hi.
Good morning.
- Good morning. - Good morning.
Hello, cooks.
Welcome back to Julia's kitchen.
When you started this competition,
there were eight of you. And now,
there are only four.
This is the last week before the big finale.
It's been an incredible journey.
Today is all about.
Julia's amazing career on television.
I know I would not be here without her.
I wouldn't be either, and none of us would,
without her influence.
Welcome to The French Chef.
I'm Julia Child.
This is a tinier 10-pound baby halibut,
but they get to be 300 pounds.
Oh, I won't do anything like that.
Now, this... I meant to put oil in there,
and I put vermouth instead,
but that doesn't make any difference.
In 1961,
Julia Child made a trip to Boston
to promote her new cookbook,
Mastering the Art of French Cooking.
She arrived with everything
to make a perfect French omelette.
And that cooking demo launched
her television career.
She made cooking fun and accessible,
she was relatable.
And when she made mistakes on TV,
she just rolled with it.
I myself have never made a mistake on television.
For your first round today,
you'll have 45 minutes to make us
a perfect French omelette.
Yeah.
The French omelett seems to be
a very simple dish at first glance,
but it's very technical.
You have to fold it then flip it.
It has to come out exactly right.
It took me quite a while to master it.
It takes a little bit of practice,
and I think a good way to practice
is by using some beans,
and I'll show you how this works.
Your first movement is just a flat,
sort of, moving around,
so that you get the eggs to coagulate.
And then you begin jerking I towards yourself like this.
And then, there's your omelette, voila.
That's a good way to get the technique of this.
So keep in mind that a French omelette
is different than an American omelette.
What we wanna see,
fluffy and light in the center,
just pudding-like when we cut into it.
And, of course, no color.
But we also wanna give you the freedom to get creative
and put some of yourselves into it.
It's got to be perfect.
So if it's not, start again.
And remember, today determines who ends up in the finale.
It just got very real.
Good luck and get cooking.
All you need to make an omelette
is a hot fire and you need a bowl,
and you need some butter, some salt and pepper,
and some eggs.
Eggs, eggs, eggs. More eggs.
The humble omelette.
You just think about, you know,
the classic techniques that Julia
always talked about.
All we have is a little butter,
- and egg, little salt. - Yeah.
It's the simplest ingredients.
- Yes. - And yet, it needs
to be treated so delicately
because the protein that's in there
is gonna coagulate. It's timing,
heat... A little bit of heat.
- Yes. - A lot of movement.
Yes. A lot of movement.
The things that you think are simple,
because there are only two ingredients,
or there are only four ingredients,
are always the most challenging.
- Yes. - What strikes me is
when I watch Julia make an omelette,
the butter is paid so much attention to
because you don't want any color on it, right?
You want it somewhere between...
Sherry's hair and her dress.
Julia makes it look easy, but it isn't.
Unless you've done it a thousand times.
This looks good. Your chives look really great,
- your cuts are wonderful. - Oh, thank you, thank you.
- So, fantastic. - I appreciate it,
- coming from you, oh, my God. - Yeah, fantastic.
The judges are both pastry chefs
and I am crazy about baking.
Sherry is just amazing.
She has this sparkly personality
that it's just... You want to be around her.
- Good luck. Go get 'em. - Okay. Okay. Thank you.
Beautiful.
I'm gonna make a very simple omelette
with some leeks and gruyere
getting eggs cracked, uh, melted some clarified butte
so I can get this hollandaise going.
And this is the last week before the finale.
And it's been a hard road,
but I feel like this is exactly
where I expected to be.
I've come this far, no going home now
until I fight for the win.
What makes a good hollandaise
is really getting the emulsion right.
The last thing we want is for the hollandaise to break,
so getting the butter whipped into those egg yolks
so it's nice, and creamy, and velvety,
I added a little saffron.
It's gonna add a little bit of flavor,
but also kind of contribute to the color.
- Hello. - Hi. How, are you?
It kind of matches your dress.
It does. It's a perfect timing,
perfect timing.
Tell me, what do you have in the, uh, food processor?
- Hollandaise. - Okay.
And that's gonna go over your eggs?
- It is. - Thank you.
- So eggs with eggs? - Eggs with eggs.
- And there's saffron? - Saffron, yeah.
Saffron, hollandaise.
And what other spices and seasonings?
Uh, not a lot, honestly.
I'm gonna fill it with some, uh, some sauteed leeks
and a little bit of gruyere,
because I love cheese in my omelette.
I think I probably first sa Julia Child in my mid-20s.
You know, kind of with more the emergence of YouTube,
just kinda scrolling through watching cooking videos
and... and coming across this tall, boisterous woman
with a strange voice, such an infectious personality
and, and seeing her kind of fumbling
through the kitchen like most home cooks do.
It was just more charming than seeing Gordon Ramsay
with his perfectly quaffed hair.
She made it approachable.
She went to culinary school
she was definitely out of her element,
and surrounded by, I'm sure, a bunch of men
who were like, "What is thi woman doing here?"
I... I can kind of relate to that. Like, growing up,
watching all these cooking shows,
I didn't see people like me. I didn't see...
There were no brown and black people
on these cooking shows.
Are these prawns I'm seeing?
Some shrimp action? What's happening?
They're shrimp, exactly. I'm, um...
- Wonderful. - Making a riff
on a Coquilles St. Jacques as a topping
to essentially a classic French omelette
with just herbs.
Scallops in French
are called Coquilles St. Jacques,
and that is after this apostle, St. James.
Be sure that you have your oil very, very hot
and it should be almost smoking.
And then into the pan go your scallops.
I might do a little accompaniment
of a breakfast radish,
maybe a grilled breakfast radish for bitter.
Oh, stop.
Are you flirting with me?
It's... It's working.
Stephanie, Stephanie Stephanie, my goodness.
Her work is just amazing.
Total rock star chef.
- This sounds great. - -Thank you.
Continue doing what you're doing.
This entire experience has been about
being pushed and, and lifted
and made you experiment,
and I think that is the essence of... of Julia,
and the essence of cooking and being in the kitchen.
There's been some trips along the way,
but I'm always trying something new.
I'm always trying to get outside of my comfort level.
And I think the judges see that.
My goal is to try to really be imaginative.
Is that sugar?
Jaine, I need you to taste this.
Tried my sauce, it's really sweet.
Does this taste sweet to you?
- It's really, like sugary. - It is sweet.
Uh-hmm. It is sweet.
It's like pure sugar.
Um, it... It's disturbingly sweet.
Yeah, I don't know where that's coming from.
What happened here?
For some reason, these are a little
these are just a little sweet.
I... I'm not understanding why, uh,
I put a little sherry in there to kind of balance that out.
Um, I'm just kind of going
with a little bit of cream here,
I'm gonna season.
It's so weird.
It's almost like I put sugar in by mistake.
I just recently had my first French omelet
and I loved it.
The process of making it is really fun.
I'm a converted big fan to the French omelet.
What flavors are you gonna be doing?
So I'm making this frisee salad.
And, um, my omelet's gonna have
- a little bit of blue cheese. - Okay.
And I'm also making prosciutto
just to, you know, um, incorporate in my salad,
so you have a little bit of crunchiness.
I like it.
I am super worried about the finale,
but at the same time,
so grateful that I'm still here.
And I hope I stay here.
One of the things I most like about Julia
is that she was the first.
She started what we have today,
with cooking on TV.
Julia was just a natural, I think,
like, she could capture attention for hours,
and make you crave whatever she was making.
It definitely influenced me
and, and be a super fan of cooking on TV.
Um, it, it's got too much color.
I just have to adjust the flame.
You have to tame the flames properly
to have the creaminess inside,
and just a touch of color on the outside
and fold it and flip it.
It's a lot.
Well, hello.
So, have you ever made a French omelet before?
- Let's start with the basics. - I have.
You have? Okay.
On, on a given day, I've made twelve.
Okay. So since you're comfortable
- with the basic techniques... - Yes.
What are you doing to make it you?
Um, so I'm doing a little bit sauteed shallots and butter,
and a little bit of white wine vinegar,
just a touch, some gruyere cheese,
and, of course, mixing in a ton of chives and parsley.
I'm on board with everything you're saying.
Wish me luck with the risk.
I have all day for what is happening right now.
Oh, lovely. Okay.
The first time I ever saw Julia,
I'm, you know, sitting Indian style in my living room,
watching television,
Julia Child is on the scree
and she's making a, a French omelet.
So in go the eggs.
Now we shake the pan this way,
stir it with the back of the fork.
And it's coagulated
and just gets scraped down there.
Her personality is just, like, something I really related to,
and she's very, like, a motherly figure in a way.
So I remember jumping in the kitchen immediately
to make myself an omelet.
And, you know, zhooshing it around and scrambling
and not knowing at nine, ten years old
that I was making a French-style omelet.
And my mom goes, like, "What are you doing?"
Why are you scrambling..." Like, because,
because I saw it on television,
because Julia did it that way.
Why are you not doing it this way?
It's delicious.
The first time I met Julia outside,
of course, her books,
was, uh, in San Francisco,
and that must have been 1990 or so.
I was fortunate enough to work at Campton Place Hotel
where she shot the KQED series.
She walked around and...
In my kitchen in the morning and asking questions.
"What are you making? What's going on?"
Uh, even saying to me, "Sherry, you work too hard.
Where are your friends?" You know.
She'd say, "You need to have friends, you work too..."
She was always so caring.
About time to get eggs in the pan.
Just before the butt begins to brown,
in go the eggs.
Going in.
You should hear them sizzle
as they hit the pan,
and then you wait for a moment
and you grab the pan
and just begin swirling it flat around the heat.
And then gradually jerking it towards you.
Come on.
There's your omelet
turning over on itself,
forming itself on the botto of the pan.
That's okay, I'm gonna try for another one.
Not quite what I want.
It's got too much color.
Four omelets at the beginning
seemed like an easy task
until you realize you really gotta move
to get these all on the plate,
uh, and looking good at the same time.
That is too brown.
Oh, yeah. There it is.
Ah.
Okay. Time's up. That's time, that's time.
Hmm.
We're gonna serve these for a nice, light luncheon.
That makes a very attractive meal.
Britt?
What I made is a classic French omelet,
but I added shallots, sauteed with some butter
and a little bit of white wine vinegar,
and then I added gruyere and also chives and parsley.
I sliced the omelet down the center
just to see if we were gonna get that pudding-like texture.
There's a beautiful sort of creaminess
that's coming out of mine,
and I wanna pick it up with a spoon, so.
Mine is very pudding-like on the inside,
just slightly ever so runny.
I really enjoyed the shallots in there,
it brings that nice, little fragrance and bite
at the same time to balance off the fattiness.
For a variety of reasons,
the consistency is obviously off.
It appeared rushed.
That being said, it absolutely tasted brilliant.
Thank you.
Hello.
So I made for you a traditional French omelet.
There's a little bit of blue cheese
inside the omelet
and crispy prosciutto on the frisee salad
because my fiance, we always eat,
like, this combination, and I think it's good
because there's kind of a savoriness
to the omelet.
I actually do love the blue cheese
when it's eaten with the frisee and the prosciutto.
On its own, it did seem a little overwhelming.
- Uh-hmm. - -The blue cheese.
I think the construction of your omelet
is pretty much perfect.
It could be argued that it's a little bit overdone
on the inside because it's not having that
beautiful, custardy reveal.
But I think it's fabulous.
Thank you so much.
- Dustin. - Hello.
Uh, there are some sauteed leeks
and gruyere in the middle.
And then on top,
there is a saffron hollandaise.
Why egg on egg?
Uh, the egg on egg is...
- Hollandaise... - -Hollandaise,
and omelet on the same plate.
I think that's pretty classic.
We have a eggs Benedict and it's egg on egg,
I think hollandaise goes well on egg,
and I kinda like the duality of it.
Flavor-wise, I think this is absolutely just spot-on.
I think your saffron, a little bit much,
but I love the acidity that
the hollandaise brings to the plate,
and the consistency that you have
across these three omelets,
I can't find anything wrong with it.
What you did that I thought was really smart
with your gruyere,
you created it on the micro plane.
When it melted in the center,
it became part of the omelet.
To me, that is, like, really brilliant cooking.
- Thank you very much. - -Thank you, Dustin.
- Thank you. - Thanks, ladies.
- Bill. Hello. - Hi.
I love just a simple French omelet.
So to change this one up a little bit,
I did a riff on a Coquilles St. Jacques,
except instead of the scallops,
I went with some shrimp.
Tell us about the sauce.
I sauteed the shrimp with a little bit of roux,
deglazed with a little bit of vermouth.
My first reaction, it reminds me of
French toast without the toast.
Yeah.
- Very sweet. - Yeah.
I really don't know where the sugar came from.
I can only guess that
I probably grabbed sweet vermouth.
It's for sure the vermouth. It's the vermouth.
- Okay. - Yeah.
I actually don't mind the sweetness.
In a weird way, I kind of like it.
It makes it interesting
and it kind of breaks up the monotony of,
of very flat flavors, right?
Agreed.
Well, everyone, I guess we've learned
that French omelet are not as simple as we think.
They're deceptively difficult.
There was one omelet
that we all three agreed rose above the rest.
Dustin.
Your omelet had great flavors.
Absolutely well-thought out.
But with even those amazing flavors,
the technique was what really stole the show.
Thank you.
Dustin, that would put you as the frontrunner.
Pressure's on.
Julia's TV series, The French Chef,
made classic French cooking accessible
to home cooks across the country.
It took a cuisine that people could usually
only find in restaurants
and brought it into people's homes.
She famously said, "I'm not a chef,
I'm a teacher, and I'm a cook."
As you all know,
some of the hardest things in French cooking
are the desserts.
They can be elaborate and precise,
but Julia delighted audiences
by making even the toughest French desserts seem easy.
For this second round,
we want you to overcome your fears.
And boldly take on a French dessert,
just like Julia did.
My experience with baking is failure,
after failure, after failure.
To determine which dessert
you'll be taking inspiration from in this round,
please come up here
and pick a TV remote from the basket.
Come on up. Come grab one.
Why are you guys acting like the remotes are gonna bite?
Each one of these remotes has a number on it
that corresponds to an episode
of The French Chef.
Okay.
So Britt, point your remote at the television
and then press your number.
apples are everybody's favorite fruit
since Adam and Eve.
And what we're gonna do toda
is a French type of Brown Betty
called a Charlotte o'pomme or apple Charlotte.
I saw you do like a little apple dance.
I love making apple desserts.
- Jaine. - Here it goes.
Today, we're gonna make chocolate cake.
This is the rich, buttery, brown bittersweet batter
for le gateau au chocolat I'eminence Brune.
Chocolate cake.
Well, I couldn't have said it better myself.
- Have fun. - Thank you.
All right.
We're doing a magnificent, beautiful dessert today,
a meringue in the form of a vacherin,
it's a case of meringue.
And it makes the perfect dessert for a dinner party.
Okay. Only my favorite dessert in the world.
Anything with meringue.
Throwing down the gauntlet there.
My initial reaction to the, uh, meringue
is one of just dread.
Not only have I never made a meringue cake,
I've never even tasted one,
so I have no reference on this.
I have absolutely no idea what this is supposed to be.
Okay. Dustin?
I've got just the thing for you.
Tarte aux fraises, fresh strawberry tarts,
glittering here in front of me.
And like so many things, it looks rather too grand
to be made by the home cook.
But actually, it's nothing but an assembly job.
- Nothing but an assembly job. - Why do you look so scared?
It looked like you bent over and started crying.
Baking stresses me out.
Now that you've found out what your classic
French desserts are, we want you to create
an entirely new dessert
with this dessert as your inspiration.
So, when we say we want a strawberry tart,
we don't actually want a strawberry tart.
We want you to come up with something
that's uniquely your own.
And remember, this dish can get you
into the finale, so no pressure.
You will have two hours to make your desserts today.
Good luck to you guys and get cooking.
I need this.
Today, we're doing a delicious.
French chocolate cake calle le marquis au chocolat.
Uh, the French sponge cake mixtures,
one that you've seen many times before,
and I wanted to show... I've wanted to,
to show it, to see it again because it is one
of the basic French batters in France.
It's called a pate a biscuit
meaning a batter for a biscuit,
which means a sponge cake.
I got a marquis au chocolat
which is a French chocolate cake.
I know there's a sponge, probably a butter cream
or a ganache, and hints of coffee.
I think about making something that Julia would like.
And I think a trifle was perfect.
I feel like I have one foot here
and one foot in Brazil
because I have, you know, just speaking both languages
I have to learn how to navigate
so it's always been a little bit here and there
and it could be good for everyone.
Yeah.
There's no chocolate on your station.
No.
You got cocoa powder, you've got what looks to be
like a ganache but looks to be a cake.
- A block of chocolate. - So...
This is not ganache, actually.
- Hmm. Tell me. - This is brigadeiro.
Oh, what is that?
It's a traditional Brazilian sweet.
It's like our number one.
I have nothing to say to you.
Thank you, Chef.
Brigadeiro is very traditional Brazilian sweet.
It has the texture of fudge
but the flavor is very unique.
I don't wanna mess up with mine 'cause, you know,
this is important for my culture.
So this is my brigadeiro.
And then you roll this in sprinkles.
I've never made a trifle before,
and I want to have the flavors of my childhood.
But I also wanna pay attention to the flavors
of the original marquise au chocolat cake.
I love taking inspiration from other people's foods
and cultures and putting everything together
and making it work in a surprising way.
All this cooking... my gosh. I just wanna eat.
I would be sweating during a dessert challenge,
especially sitting next to you two.
I love being that pastry investigator
to try and figure out what went wrong.
- Yeah. - What were the temperature
of the ovens were or
you know, the science of it all.
These are meringues in the form of circles,
rings, and dots.
And if you put them all together,
you'll have a vacherin, a meringue case.
And you fill this with ambrosia
and it's just wonderful for a dinner party.
This round is all about things that make us nervous.
The thing about French recipes
is they're kind of laughing at you, you know?
They kind of dare you to try them out.
I'm gonna do a small little meringue cake
with a passion fruit curd.
I'm gonna mix some savory herbs in with that
just to give it a different flavor note
and then a blueberry gel on top.
I've never made meringue before so,
so totally new thing.
You're just kind of jumping in and hoping
that there's water in the pool.
I'm doing a Swiss meringue. And I have my sugar and eggs.
There's a little bit of cream of tartar as well,
and that will help the egg whites stiffen
once they go into the blender.
I don't get a lot of practice with dessert,
and meringues aren't one of my favorites, admittedly.
Everyone should do something that terrifies them
at least once a day, right?
I'm mixing a passion fruit curd.
This will be the flavoring on the meringue.
- What temperature are you at? - It-it was at 150...
- I'm sorry, 160. - Can you just take it off?
- Can you take it off? - Well, it's off the heat.
No. It's under... there's heat sill, brother.
You got a heat under that thing.
Oh, on the pan.
So the idea of mounting the cold butter in
- helps the, the curd... - Okay.
thicken, because if not, you're melting it.
What do you think? You tell me.
It's good. I like it.
Passion fruity?
Do you think it's buttery enough?
Um, it tastes pretty buttery to me.
I concur.
- I might be done. - I think so. Rock and roll.
All right.
What we're gonna do is to make a, a big
a very fancy type of French apple sauce.
The type of apple to use is something
that is crisp and full of flavor.
I do really love apple desserts.
And the plan here today is to take the elements
from the Apple Charlotte, like that bread,
and make a bread pudding with the custard
and then layer it with apple compote.
I have not made Apple Charlottes before
but I cook a lot with apples, especially with desserts,
because I'm not really big on baking.
I wish I could have called my mom really quickly like,
"Hey, Ma, what do you put in your bread pudding?"
Just quick little guide.
I want the apples to cook down quickly but not too quickly.
I add a little cinnamon in this apple brandy.
Doing it all perfectly
so that the end result is really powerful.
This is what gets you to the finale,
so I gotta pull it off.
I'm gonna cook those, those down a little bit more.
- So... - And now I'm starting
the creme anglaise for the brioche to bake in.
I'm gonna just throw this out there too.
- Sure. Uh-hmm. - Okay?
- 'Cause I... That's delicious. - Thank you.
I think a bread pudding is a great idea,
but we wanna see something that we've never seen before,
- okay? - I wanna layer it.
- You're gonna layer it? - Yeah. I'm baking it.
And then I'm cutting it with pastry cutters,
- layering it like a cake. - Okay.
- And then if I have time... - Okay.
a little more caramel glaze, if I needed it,
on top, a little apple garnish.
I'm more of a traditional is and I like
to learn something and do it extremely well.
Only then will I branch out
figure out swapping ingredients.
But it comes with a lot of time
and really putting a lot of thought into things.
One of my favorite movies growing up
was Sabrina with Audrey Hepburn.
And I remember she went to Paris to cook
and I always wanted to do that.
But I remember her being in class
"and I'm like, "I don't know.
Being out there and cooking for real
and being graded on it and tested on it
is a little nerve-racking to me.
"So I'm like, "Oh, I'll just keep that as my hobby,
what I really love, and protect it, I guess."
The first time I ever saw Julia on television,
I think I was like 20, 21.
I just remember the chickens.
- She, she had this... - That's it. The chickens.
Yeah. The chickens.
Julia Child presents the Chicken Sisters.
Miss Broiler, Miss Fryer, Miss Roaster, Miss Caponet,
Miss Stewer, and Old Madam Hen.
Growing up, I always played
with my chickens before I roasted them.
And so there was this automatic connection
where I was like, "Oh, my goodness."
Look at this woman, larger than life, you know,
again, unapologetic about the way that she was funny
and sarcastic," and there was so much zeal
to what she did that I felt there was an opportunity
for me to cook.
- It's nice to reminisce, huh? - It's nice to...
- It feels... - To keep
to keep her spirit alive, these recipes, it's
- she'll never die, you know? - Yeah.
I know. I know.
I've still got some fight in me.
I'm not ready to go home.
I'm hoping this dessert pulls me through
because I'm ready to show what I can do in the finale.
I am getting started on some pastry dough.
My dessert is a strawberry tart.
I'm gonna kind of assemble it in a different way
and make more of a Napoleon.
So there's gonna be layers of pastry,
layers of jam, custard, and strawberries,
and then top it with chocolate.
I need nine egg yolks
'cause I am making a creme patissiere.
Creme patissiere.
I need to work on my work on my French.
I am whipping up the egg yolks and some sugar.
Getting ready to put some cornstarch.
And then I'm going to temper this mixture
with the hot milk so that it don't cook the eggs.
And I got a lot more whipping to do.
I am probably my biggest critic
when it comes to cooking
and I want to always put great food on the plate.
This is probably the first challenge in whic
I'm not sure if I'm gonna be capable of that.
You gotta put your hips into it.
See, now, it's beginning to get nice and thick.
And this is the part where you wanna watch very,
very carefully that you don't burn the bottom.
- Sorry. - Thank you.
You're welcome.
Tell me what's happening.
Walk me through your interpretation
of a strawberry tart.
My interpretation is gonna be kind of like
a strawberry Napoleon.
- Cool. Okay. - So I'm...
Yeah. That'll happen. Tilt.
And you wanna angle this back.
Yeah. Try and hit the deepest part.
There you go.
- Okay. So... - Okay.
So a layer of my very unattractive pastry.
- Why do you say... - Then...
I think the thickness on those is beautiful.
I do think some of them got a little too much color.
Some of them had a nice summer.
They'd seen the beach a little bit.
- Yeah. Went on vacations. - And then lounges.
Yes. So do you have enough
to put those not as pretty ones aside?
The good thing is that I'm making a chocolate glaze,
and some of those are the top layer and it's gonna be
glazed in chocolate anyway so I cover it up.
Yeah, but, you know, I can still taste overdone, right?
I do have... I do have extras though.
Okay.
Tight whipped cream.
- Tight. - Tight.
Tighten up your whipped cream.
There it is. That we like.
One minute, guys!
I'm just gonna clear the decks
for the final business.
Thirty seconds!
Hurry up. Those are beautiful.
All right. That's time.
- Time's up! - Excellent work.
- Up high. - Oh, my gosh.
I want you to take a look at our dining room table
'cause it's really lovely.
Beautiful.
Look at all the goodies I've got.
So we asked you to make some beautiful desserts
that really had some of your own voice in them.
I can see textures, colors,
height, excitement, drama.
- Really well done. - That's... Yeah.
Bill, let's start with you.
I got the meringue cake.
What I made was a meringue tartlet
with a passion fruit curd,
and on top is a scented blueberry glaze.
So we have whipped cream with passion fruit curd in there,
so you used the passion fruit for curd.
And it just is oozing out. Really well done.
What I see here is an incredibly successful dessert.
The look of it says what you're gonna get.
It says summer. It says spring.
It says bright. It says fluff.
It says refreshing.
And it is all of those things as soon as you eat it.
- So delicious. - Thank you. Thank you.
First passion fruit curd, first meringue, first...
You know, there's a lot of firsts here and...
- Yeah. - Really well done.
Yeah. You put yourself out there
just as Julia would have done and just went for it.
It was fun. It was actually fun.
- Thank you. - Great.
Bill, honestly so impressed because my first bite
was just an explosion. You know, the passion fruit,
which I love so much, is amazing.
I love that I could eat two, like honestly.
Thank you. Thank you.
My dessert was marquise au chocolat, a chocolate cake.
So my inspiration was brigadeiro
which is a traditional Brazilian chocolate sweet.
I baked a chocolate sponge and I made a coffee
whipped cream, whipped ganache
with toasted walnuts and cocoa nibs.
And then I made fudge with chocolate
and sweet condensed milk and butter.
Girl,
this is shockingly unsweet.
Right, right, right.
While decadent.
This is like the oxymoron of all desserts
I've ever had in my career.
They're complete opposites that just come together
in this messy manifestation
of chocolate coffee crunch.
- It's just a revelation. - Thank you.
But, at the same time, it's all you.
And to really bring in your Brazilian heritage
and make brigadeiro like that and then actually
use the filling to layer, I just think that it's such
a tribute to who you are and how you cook.
- That is a showstopper. - I am flattered.
God, I really hate this girl.
I love the nuts.
I love the cocoa nibs.
I can't believe you did this in two hours.
I'm-I'm-I'm absolutely blown out of the water.
Thank you, Bill. Thank you so much.
So I got a strawberry tart.
I made a strawberry tart Napoleon.
The top and the bottom are a vanilla pastry
which is vanilla sable.
Then there is a vanilla creme patissiere,
some fresh strawberries with a glaze on them.
And then there's some mint strawberry jam.
You represented strawberries, tart,
and you put in your own voice
and it sang on the plate.
Thank you.
I wished that there was just a lighter sense of cream
- somewhere on the dish. - Uh-hmm.
That would just bring out that sweetness
and the vanilla-riness of the pastry cream.
It would be absolute perfection.
So you're just short of perfection.
Story my life.
I would have liked to see a real solid dollop
of that pastry cream right in the center.
And then you could have created
this crown of strawberries.
Structurally, it would have given you
a lot of help and it would have eaten a lot better,
because I think it needed more pastry cream.
- Uh-hmm. - Thank you.
Thank you.
Dustin, I know you're sitting over there
being your toughest critic right now.
I can like feel it.
I'm so proud that you stepped outside of your comfort zone
to really be intricate in plating this tart.
This part is so hard.
Like the dough is so hard to construct,
especially your first time, and I just think
- it's so, so, so, so good. - Thank you.
It was so nice and fresh, Dustin.
Really something that I would expect
from a strawberry tart to be really fresh.
And, you know, I love lemon myself.
And, you know, the only thing
was really the, the creaminess of it.
But like it was impeccable.
- Really delicious. - Thank you.
You did a wonderful job.
So I got the Apple Charlotte.
And I deconstructed it and made
brioche pudding round lets
with apples and an orange vanilla cream.
How did Apple Charlotte inspire the dish?
So the components.
The apple and there's a bunch of brioche over there.
I was like, "Oh, okay.
Why not bread pudding?"
Never made bread pudding before so that was fun.
This is a first for you as well?
And really, to be honest, this was all winged.
I like the use of the Granny Smith apples.
It brings a really nice tang to the dish.
Bread pudding is just like a sponge often
if you don't let it continue to soak
for an extended period of time.
- Uh-hmm. - You'll wind up with spots
that didn't get the custard.
I like the composition of this.
I like the fact that it's sort of neat
but at the same time it's got kind of a rough,
rustic feel to it.
I wish that we had more soaking on it
'cause I've got unsoaked brioche.
I like the cook on the apples.
I just wish they were a bit sweeter.
Britt, do I think bread pudding
is out of your comfort zone?
No. Do I think that you plated out of your comfort zone?
A hundred percent because this looked gorgeous.
It was visually stunning.
And it eats like the most comforting apple pie...
- Uh-hmm. - but it looks like
it should be in a pastry window.
Thank you.
I absolutely love Granny Smith apples
so I like the tartness of it.
Like there's just something so homey and comforting
about flavors of, of apple pie and like the fall
and the cinnamon and the clove,
and so this is like sitting on the couch after a long day
having... having the exact dessert I wanted.
Thanks.
Now, I think...
I mean, this has been an illustration of how easy
it is to build really very attractive desserts.
You can just have a whole bevy of desserts
at your fingertips
and you can use anything you can think of.
My favorite, hands down, were Jaine.
Her trifle, it was without flaw.
Aside from that, I loved Bill's.
I thought it was beautifully light.
It just reminded me of a tea party.
It really was Bill's
because I'd drive across town to get that.
Least favorites, I gotta go with Britt.
Conceptually, a little bit on the safer side.
It's bread and apples.
The presentation was beautiful... I mean come on...
Who can turn a bread pudding into something
so elegant-looking, right?
It just didn't follow through with the flavors
and the dimensions that
that we were getting in the other desserts.
Dustin's I thought was great but it was lacking refinement.
We have to take into consideration round one.
Bill and Jaine are up for the win.
I am only judging this based on round two
because both of their omelets were equal in the bottom.
Between Britt and Dustin,
we have Britt who made a perfectly-cooked omelet.
You on the other hand
- had raw eggs on a plate. - Yeah.
Whereas we all agreed Dustin was our favorite in round one.
- Uh-hmm. - Yeah.
So we have a unanimous who won today.
- Yeah. - Yes.
Do we know who's going to the finale?
- Yes. - Yes.
It's impossible
not to feel nervous in this point.
It's anyone's game.
The pressure is so o.
If I go home because of that dish, I...
I really gave that every thin
and I'm really proud of that dish.
Never felt like this before
I'm actually a very confident person,
and I am a little worried.
Today was all about looking back
at Julia's amazing TV career,
where it started and the impact
that it's had on all of us.
Unfortunately, there's only three spots in the finale.
The first cook going into the finale is...
Bill.
Thank you.
I'm so glad.
It's come so fast and furiou and it's been so intense.
I'm kind of in shock over the whole thing.
The second cook who will be joining Bill
in the finale is...
Jaine.
I am in the finale.
I don't believe.
It's amazing really.
I would never believe I would get to this point.
You know, to go so far in the competition
just cooking what I cook at home.
I have no words nor
in English or Portuguese, honestly.
It just really surreal.
The third and last cook that's going
into the finale is...
Dustin.
Congratulations, Dustin.
I feel like I made it through this challenge
by the skin of my teeth.
And now it's down to just three people.
It's really time to step it up.
Unfortunately, Britt,
we're gonna have to say goodbye.
It's been an honor to be here.
I'm gonna miss you.
Right?
We are gonna miss you.
I definitely feel like I've really come closer
to Julia throughout this whole experience.
It's been so much fun.
Oh, my God. I'm gonna cry.
I can't think of it.
I can't think about it.
That's all for today.
This is Julia Child.
Bon appetit.
Welcome back one final time.
One of you will win a three-month course
at Le Cordon Bleu in Paris.
This is exactly what I came for.
It's a life-changing prize.
We have to be making all three courses out once.
Absolutely delicious.
And now the winner is...