The Baked Alaska Pressure Test! | MasterChef Canada | MasterChef World

Baked Alaska, a majestic classic that when conquered is truly the mark of a master chef. What? I have no idea what it is. Thanks. The base is a moist, airy layer of sponge cake brushed with the essence of a syrup or liqueur. The center of the dessert is a dome of rich ice cream. Surrounding the sponge and ice cream is thick, pillowy meringue, browned to perfection. Why don't you come up and take a look? I literally think it's a joke, because I don't even think it's possible. The trick to baked Alaska is making sure that whilst it's baking in a fiercely hot oven, that the ice cream doesn't melt. The meringue acts as an insulation. The right amount of thickness of that meringue is essential. Sponge, ice cream, and meringue married into one luxurious presentation. Please head to your stations. There you will find identical sets of ingredients. You have 80 minutes to prepare, bake and present an individual-sized baked Alaska. Your time starts... I'm very nervous. Just be calm, Caleb. Be calm, okay? Eric looks frazzled. No, I have no clue who's going home. Could be any of us. Calmness level is all-time low. Hate desserts. Never had one of these before. This is an incredibly technically detailed dessert. There are three major components. The sponge. The ice cream and a meringue that you want to get all over that dessert to insulate it, and then in a fiery hot oven. You have to make sure that all three elements work perfectly together. So the first step is make the ice cream, right? Agreed? They have to be doing it now. I'm most worried about ice cream. I've never made ice cream. I sure as hell have never baked ice cream. So, worried? Yeah. I'm shitting my pants. Kayla? Hi. So I see you're preparing some strawberries, so you're not sticking with a classic. No, I'm actually going to do a riff on a Neapolitan ice cream. So I've done a chocolate sponge cake, a vanilla ice cream, and I'm going to do a strawberry sauce. Well, I've never seen your hand tremble quite so much as it is today, so I'm going to leave you with that and make sure that you watch the time. You only have 45 minutes left. Danielle, how you doing? Good, how are you? What do you have in there? It's going to be a maple pistachio ice cream, and then I'm going to be brushing the sponge cake with a little bit of maple whiskey sauce. You sure you're not taking a little bit of a risk there? I'm definitely taking a risk, but it's MasterChef Canada Kitchen, it's time to start taking risks. Who's going home today? It's definitely not going to be me. Really? Absolutely not. Your ice cream should be in the bin now, so it'll freeze up solid. I've made sponge cake a few times, so I am feeling pretty good. Okay, guys, that sponge cake needs to be in the oven. Go, go, go, get it in there. I'm a little bit worried. Maybe this won't bake in time. I'm mixing the batter, and I start folding in flour. Julie. Hi. Baked Alaska challenge, got to be the toughest yet. Are you confident that you can pull all that off? Yes. Looks like the flour is a little under-mixed there. I would take that out with a spoon. So you don't get that raw flour flavor. Thank you. I think Julie is having a meltdown. I just came off Julie's station. She was taking her Genovese sponge, pouring it into the sheet pan. And the flour that is in there, that is unmixed, I said to her, take it out, remix it, so it mixes through nicely. She didn't take that advice. She just takes her spatula and mixes it through, throws it into the oven. If we find uncooked flour in that sponge cake, it could be the end. Why wouldn't you take your advice at this stage of the game? 30 minutes. You only have 30 minutes left. Your last 30 minutes. I open the oven and I pull out the cake and it's not servable. I can see that there's too much moisture in the cake. It's raw. Is it? It's raw. I see Danielle and she threw her cake in the garbage. And I think, what are you doing? My sponge cake flopped. My egg, I don't know if I under whipped them or over whipped them, but starting over. If my second sponge cake doesn't work, it's over. I am praying for an absolute miracle. I start to mold my sponge cake, and it's mushy. It is brown globs of goop. Trying to salvage it and put it in a ring mold and cross my fingers. I pull out my second sponge cake, and it's just as bad as the first. I'm absolutely ticked. I have no time to make a third sponge cake. I have to use it. Danielle's having a problem with her cake too, and I'm thinking maybe hers will be worse than mine. Ten minutes! You only have ten minutes left. Come on! Your meringue should be going by now. On the meringue, not the easiest of things to make. Separating those egg yolks from the white, making sure there's no contamination, because if you get a bit of that egg yolk into it, it is not going to become light and fluffy. Adding the right amount of sugar and then beating it so it is nice and stiff and easy to work with. That's the key. It has to be stiff so that it creates an insulation around that ice cream. Time to put my meringue on my cake so I can start throwing it on. It looked like abstract art. I'm pretty good at culinary engineering. When it comes to constructing things, you pretty much have to slop a bunch of meringue on and just even it out, smooth it out, and take a spoon and start dolloping to get those nice peaks. You have five minutes! Start baking your Alaska! When I put it in the oven, I'm actually a little bit proud that I've actually pulled this off. My ice cream is solid, and my meringue is perfect. I put my baked Alaska in the oven. I feel like I have a little bit of hope. Everyone's doing awesome, but Kayla is behind everybody. I'm a little bit worried about Kayla right now. She's got to get her baked Alaska in the oven. Two minutes left. Kayla's got the torch going. That's probably a smart idea. If you don't have enough time, just ******* sear it. That's what I would do. Yeah, so my meringue isn't crisping up as much as I would like it to, so I'm just going to blow torch the top of it really quickly. I don't know what it will do to the meringue, but it looks pretty. Nice. Very smart, Kayla. Ten, nine, eight, seven, six, five, four, three, two, one. Heads up! Great job, guys. Time is up, and I'm definitely worried. My baked Alaska looked like an igloo, but a really ugly igloo. Please bring your baked Alaskas up to the front to be tasted. Compared to the beginning, I definitely thought I was going home. Taking out my baked Alaska, I think I have a pretty good chance of winning this. I know inside this meringue, my ice cream is soft. Right now, I'm not hoping to be the best. I'm hoping somebody screwed up more than I did. Now the judges will taste each baked Alaska and decide which cooks stay and which cooks will leave the MasterChef Canada kitchen once and for all. Eric. What's up? I tell you, cuts beautifully. Sponge, nice and fluffy. Meringue, nicely crisp. Cake, to me, is beautiful. You tell me you cannot make dessert, eh? That doesn't say it. You tend to underrate yourself. Sometimes, you have to pat yourself on the back. Eric. Chef. It is very good. Thank you, Chef. Danielle. This is a maple pistachio baked Alaska. Ice cream was a little soft. Sponge is a little disappointing. Ice cream was soft. Yeah, it was. I'm guessing it's because of the insulation of the sponge below. That made the ice cream melt on you. Not your finest work. Definitely not. I want this bad. I do not want to go home on a stupid dessert. Tense, man. Hi, Julie. Hi. You think you honored a classic? I did. Some nice layers happening here. Sponge cake right on the bottom. It looks a little grainy. Did you incorporate all the flour? I tried to. Because it looks like there's raw flour in here. Wow. I've never seen a baked Alaska with raw flour. That might be very costly for you. Yes, I know that. Julie. Hi. Looks like the loading of the meringue got a little carried away there, huh? Yeah. Good success on the ice cream, though, by the looks of it. I had mentioned to you about the... Yes, you did. ...flour in the sponge. Listen, the texture of the meringue is good, the ice cream is good. Listening to Chef Michael could send me home. Nice three layers. What's the flavor of the sponge on the bottom? Uh, the flavor of the sponge is chocolate. Were you happy with the way the sponge turned out? Uh, it was a little bit fudgy, or more than spongy, but the flavor's really good. You're right. It's fudgy. Yes, Chef. Almost like a brownie, if you wish. Thank you. I saw you using a blow torch. Where did you learn that trick from? I just wanted to get a little bit darker. I thought it would be a good idea. It was a good idea. It definitely got it darker. It's different. Where is the sponge cake? Isn't that a brown thing? Look at that. It doesn't look very appealing, does it? No, Chef. Flavor's nice. Took some risks here. And unfortunately, some of them don't pay off too well. Yes, Chef.