[dynamic music playing]
I can't believe it.
We started with 12 hungry chefs and narrowed it down to you talented four.
It is super surreal to be in the final four,
surrounded by amazing people.
I feel like these are the top dogs, and I'm among them.
One of you here will go down in history as a snack food legend
as well as snagging that $50,000 grand prize.
All you'll have to do to get it is impress our judges in the remaining challenges.
If it feels like we're getting really nit-picky
and we're being harder as the competition goes further,
it's because you are top four.
And we can't wait to see what you guys do.
Without further ado,
let's check in with our friend, the vending machine,
to find out what y'all be making today.
[playful suspense music playing]
Ooh.
You're gonna be making Ho Hos!
[exhales]
[Sandy] Of course the Ho Ho drops.
My baking skills are non-existent.
There's no way in hell I'm making a five-millimeter cake.
You're gonna have to make a cake that's strong and sturdy enough
to be rolled into that characteristic swirl
without being too strong that it becomes dense and gummy.
I sense disaster.
Shh!
The cakes are moist, rich, and fluffy while being enrobed in chocolate.
Not only do you have to roll the cake,
but you have to roll the frosting along with it.
Each one has different set of physics you gotta watch out for.
We're gonna fail.
Stop it.
You'll have two hours to make a Ho Ho.
Get ready to take your stations. The recreation challenge starts now.
[horn honks]
[upbeat music playing]
[Hari] To create the Ho Ho, our chefs need to make a chocolate cake batter
that is airy and thin, but strong and flexible enough
to have the ability to roll into the Swiss roll shape of a Ho Ho
without breaking apart.
It's a nice cocoa aroma. I really like the aroma of it.
It's a really moist cake, which is good.
Look at how thin those layers are.
I don't know if a human can make layers that thin.
[Hari] Second, they'll need to create a cream filling
that is a thin marshmallow consistency
so it's easy to spread onto the cake,
and then roll the cake and cream filling into the Ho Ho shape.
Finally, they'll need to prepare a chocolate glaze,
combining it with coconut oil,
so it dries into a hard chocolate shell encasing the Ho Ho.
I think one of the issues trying to recreate a Ho Ho is,
it does look tidy.
[Lauryn] Behind you.
If the swirl is a bit off or the chocolate coating is too thick,
it can look really bake sale really quickly.
Something somebody's selling on a sidewalk.
[Hari] Dense. Moist. Flexible.
Each day, my mantra is, "One day at a time."
Be present in the moment.
My mom always says, "How do you eat an elephant?"
"One bite at a time till it's gone."
Thinking about these challenges coming up,
I think this is a big elephant.
My approach is to mix my flours together.
Some soy flour.
A little bit of baking powder with the cocoa powder.
I'm dissolving my salts in my fats,
emulsifying them to help give flexibility in the batter.
Then I will lay them flat, bake them quickly.
Then I will fill lightly, roll, cut, set, coat, and enjoy.
Piece of cake, right? Nothing doing. Just make a Ho Ho.
Cocoa powder, obviously.
The hardest part of recreating the Ho Ho is definitely the cake.
I wanna make sure it has structure, but it's not dense,
which will be difficult.
I'm sifting through all of my dry ingredients.
That's how you get a nice even cook on your cake and it gets really fluffy.
It's cake. I love cake. I love making cake.
I used to have a side hustle of making cakes for special occasions.
I love cake so much.
Does anyone have the immersion blender?
I feel strong today, but I'm also, I mean...
There's things that could go wrong.
[thud]
[laughing]
-Are you all right? -[laughing] I'm fine.
This is why they say don't run in kitchens.
I'm only slightly embarrassed.
[dynamic music playing]
-Sandy. -Hey, guys. How are you today?
-Good. You're double-fisting mixers. -[chuckling] Yeah.
[Ali] Walk us through your approach.
I did the six eggs, sugar, and got 'em really fluffy.
Then I added in minimal flour, kinda just trying to pump moisture in it.
I'm worried about density.
We're looking for cloud cake, not heavy, wet fog.
Yeah.
There's a lot of water in your batter already.
Um, there's no water.
-Eggs? -There's mad eggs.
-Eggs are mostly water. -Yeah.
Oh, okay. Fair enough.
I'm not really science. I'm very, like, hands-on feel.
-Whether you like it or not. -Yeah.
Science is calling the shots on everything that happens.
It's your choice to acknowledge it or not.
Yeah.
We hope it looks and tastes like a Ho Ho.
I guess we'll find out when it comes out.
Thanks, Sandy.
I'm gonna make the lightest, airiest, most chocolate-y sponge cake for you guys.
I'll use a Dutch-process cocoa.
I think the flavor is more intense and it's a higher quality.
I'm more of a savory chef,
but I feel more comfortable baking than making Gushers or Pringles.
So, I'm actually here for it.
I think in order to win, I have to be perfect, quite frankly.
The other three competitors are worthy adversaries.
Hari is methodical and meticulous.
Sandy, he can't even tell you what he's doing,
but then these amazing things come out.
I think Lauryn's a sleeper. She's one of the youngest people here,
but she knows her field of study so well
that she's intimidating in her own right.
I wanna win this competition because
American society loves to tell women over 40 they're past their peak,
nobody wants them and they can't do anything.
I'm here to show them I'm just getting started.
[Hari] Dang, it's getting good.
It looks really good. I'm happy with the batter.
[Ali] This is a challenge where
each of these chefs should have rolled something in their lives.
So many times they can't remember, absolutely.
The trick is gonna be engineering each of the components
so they will roll correctly.
The cake has to be strong, but not tough.
Kind of like how I like my men.
Tender and flexible?
Exactly.
[intriguing music playing]
I'm so scared.
Ah. Let's see. It's peeling off nice.
Ooh. ♪ And it's thin ♪
♪ It's so thin ♪
[Clara] I feel good about the cake. I like the way it looks, light and airy.
-Hey, look at these. -Yeah, mine look better.
[laughing]
What a funny guy.
[chuckles]
My sponge cake right now is a little dense.
Come on.
The great thing is, it is literally a yoga mat.
I could roll that thing up and put it in my pocket
and unpack it later and it'd roll right out.
Boom.
So hard.
It's light and airy. We're fine.
[laughing]
This bend is real nice. I'm real happy with the bend.
It's all about the bend.
[Clara] All right, I'm getting nervous.
[tense music playing]
[Clara] Argh!
[Ali] Oh, Clara is doing the cake crumble.
[Helen] Uh-oh.
My cake's falling apart. It's an utter disaster.
[tense music continues]
-Just falling apart into ashes. -Yeah.
I didn't bind it enough, and so it's all falling apart.
One hour left!
Can't salvage it. It's garbage. I have to start over.
I need to keep going.
Freaking out won't help me get to my final destination.
I will go down swinging rather than give up.
She's in redo mode.
Wait, redo mode from the start?
Yes.
[Ali] I don't know if it's actually possible
to start everything again with less than half the time remaining.
She was overcomplicating it because she had 20 ingredients going into it.
Gonna have a heart attack.
[funky music playing]
I'm gonna bring together the filling.
The original Ho Ho, it's filled with a light frosting icing.
And they use a lot of fats in this.
For mine, I'm gonna take a meringue approach.
It's light, fluffy, creamy, sweet.
I'm whisking all of my sugars together so I can add them to my egg white filling.
I'm giving structure from the sugar to my fluffed eggs.
I'm really going for precision this time.
Right now, I'm making my frosting. It looks nice and glossy.
Oh, yeah. Fluffy... texture. Kind of like marshmallows.
Remember when my cake got messed up and I started over the middle?
This is the fastest cake I've ever made. I won't give up. I'll go down trying.
Come on, fluff!
I'm making the filling right now.
Cream of tartar, where are you?
Cream of tartar is really helping.
It's like a stabilizer and it works well for fluff.
Yeah, it's looking really good.
So high on sugar right now.
You have 30 minutes left, chefs.
Thirty minutes.
Chilled and filled.
How much fluff is too much fluff?
It's crazy how malleable it is still. It's not falling apart when I do this.
Hey, everyone. Come and see how good this looks.
-You're my hero, dude. -[Sandy laughs]
The fluff is looking marshmallow-tastic.
Really fluorescent white, almost looks fake, but I know it's not.
It's the magic of egg whites and sugar.
Look at that.
I will take this over crumbling chocolate cake any day.
[Hari] I'm trying to work on the sides. I think my amount of filling's right.
They're breaking a bit.
It's a little bit bigger.
[sighs deeply]
"Go on TV," they said. "Fun," they said.
The last aspect of the Ho Ho cake is the chocolate glaze.
It is a very thin layer of chocolate.
I keep thinking I'm okay, and then I'm not.
It might be a bit thick.
Definitely want to get out any dry bits that might be there.
Okay, that's good.
Is it hard to make that flexible, thin chocolate?
It's not just melted chocolate tempered.
-It shouldn't be hard like a candy bar. -Right.
It's almost like a hybrid between chocolate and a glaze.
-[Clara] You have any more soy flour? -Here's AP.
-Yes. No, I have AP. -Okay.
The glaze, if I take a bunch of palm oil, which sets at room temperature,
it's magic shell.
You dump that chocolate sauce over ice cream and it hardens.
That's how you get that crust on it.
There's that sweetness.
This was my biggest concern, was this magic shell.
That's why I get those things in the blast chiller frozen because
it'll be, like, good if it works.
I don't know.
This glaze is not as glaze-y as I'd like. It looks thick. Gonna have to adjust it.
[Clara] I know my time is running out,
but I have to see how it is when it comes out of the oven.
I'm so nervous. I feel like I'll have a heart attack,
but I have to keep going.
[Sandy] I know y'all were waiting for me to do something messy
and it's about to happen.
[chuckles]
I don't know. I'm crazy surprised.
It, like, worked.
Just my fingerprints.
[chuckles]
I need to glaze these up.
I added probably 20 grams of water. I think it'll still glaze nicely.
You gotta go with the flow-flow when you're making Ho Hos.
I'm just making sure I have enough glaze.
I'm gonna stretch this a bit.
Ten minutes left!
Thank you.
Okay. One, two, three, four, five.
[exhales]
Kids, don't try this at home.
[suspenseful music playing]
Ah! Look at that release! I'm so happy.
They're not as small as they need to be, but I feel like my textures are right.
[exhales sharply]
[exhales]
[Clara] There's less than five minutes left.
I need to roll it, cut it into segments, and I need to glaze it.
Aah!
[percussive music playing]
-[Lauryn] They look pretty. -Thanks.
[Sandy] Looks sexy.
-One minute, chefs. You have one minute. -Thank you! One minute!
If you haven't started yet, take some store-bought ones.
Melt them slightly. Chip the edges.
Make them look good, but not too good.
Oh, God.
[percussive music builds]
Right behind. Hot!
[Sandy] Eh... Oh!
[exhales]
Did my best.
-Oh my God. -[Megan] That's time!
Put the Ho Hos down!
-[Sandy] Clara, you are my idol. [laughs] -She did it.
Jesus.
-Hello. -Hi.
Clara, can you talk to us about your Ho Ho?
So, the first batch that I did basically disintegrated.
I had to start all over again.
So that is why it looks like I'm plating for you for Nailed It!.
I apologize. It is tasty. I will say that. I think it's delicious.
It's light and airy.
I am proud that I finished under the circumstances.
You made it, so kudos for turning it around,
-getting it on plate. -Good job.
Aesthetics are not great.
-I like the cream. -[Clara] Thank you.
-I think with a cream that successful... -Yeah.
...your first cake might've worked better.
It literally fell apart.
[Ali] Honestly, this could be like crumble.
I think what you could've done is spread out a sheet of just cream,
stuck all the crumbs to it and assembled an ad hoc cake.
-Then glazed it really nice. -True.
In general, it tastes very close to the original,
but, like, fluffy and moist and freshly made just for you.
-Thank you so much, Clara... -Thank you.
...for sharing your snack.
-Thanks, Clara. -Thanks, guys.
Hari, tell us about your Ho Ho.
Assembly was not machine-smooth,
but I feel it's a moist, really good representation of it.
I like that your glaze layer is thinner than the cake layer inside.
That is true to the Ho Ho.
I think the texture is a bit closer to a fudge brownie.
It's a bit denser and honestly a bit moister.
The cream is very marshmallow fluff texture.
-Yep. -[Helen] Right?
And also because your cake is so dense,
when you went to roll it, it has flat parts and cracked parts.
Part of the magic of the Ho Ho is the cream is more dense than the cake.
What you have is the opposite. Your cake is stronger than your cream.
-Okay. -I really like flavor of the cream.
As inaccurate as it is.
-[Hari laughs] -[Megan] But it's really good.
Lauryn B, tell us about your Ho Ho.
If you guys just close your eyes...
-[laughing] -...take a bite,
you will taste a Ho Ho cake. [laughs]
There's a lot of fluff, but I thought I got a good roll out of it.
-So, crack city. -[Lauryn] Yeah.
The Ho Ho is the lightest cake in town.
-And your cake is very light. -Thank you. [laughs]
It's still not thin enough.
I think the cream is getting squashed a little bit by the cake.
But it's not far off from the lightness of the Ho Ho.
I think the glaze is really correct.
Okay, that's fair.
This, like... It's really good.
-Oh, that was a good... thing. -Correctness.
-Not cracked. -Oh, okay.
-I was like, "I can't please this woman." -Wow.
[laughing]
Tastes right, looks right, and behaves, like, soft, but crackable.
-Okay. -You made a delicious cake.
Thank you. I'll take it.
-Thank you so much, Lauryn B. -Thanks, guys.
-Hi. -Hello.
Sandy, will you tell us about your Ho Ho?
Ho Ho. Um, I did my best.
I think it had a good moisture.
The fluff came out too marshmallowy, but I like the texture of the cake.
I dumped it in the glaze.
I had finger marks. I didn't know how to get it out.
-I poured it over and it got really thick. -[laughs]
It's a little thicker than a Ho Ho. It's not far off.
But what I like, it's a very unusual brittleness
that is true to the unusual brittleness outside of a Ho Ho.
[Helen] The color is a bit dark,
but it's absolutely rollable.
I love that you got it to wind around.
Taste of the cream is on par with what the cream in a Ho Ho tastes like.
The balance of the Ho Ho cake is roll-ability and lighter than air.
I can strongly say you nailed the first one.
-Yes. -Just like the surprise inside?
-The... Yeah. -[laughing]
-Yes. We were definitely surprised. -[Ali] Yeah.
-Thank you so much. -Appreciate it, guys.
Okay, judges.
Who made Ho Hos, and who made no-nos?
All four of you guys made objectively delicious things.
So, thank you for making it tasty.
But there can only be one winner.
[Helen] Congratulations...
[drumroll]
Lauryn B.
-[Clara] Whoo! Yeah! -[Hari] Yeah!
[laughing]
Yay!
[laughing]
Lauryn B, you had the most accurate Ho Ho.
[laughing]
I'm, like, shocked. [chuckles]
[Ali] That cake was light.
Phew! [chuckles]
Thank you so much. It feels good.
[Megan] Huge congratulations, Lauryn B.
But you still need to prove yourself in the next round.
Both rounds count towards your win.
And this round is gonna be pretty tough.
This is about whether you have what it takes to create a snack
as incredible, iconic, and innovative as the Ho Ho.
The thing that makes snack cakes so much fun
is that they are delightful bite-sized versions of classic desserts.
Ho Hos are shrunken-down versions of baked Swiss cake rolls.
Hostess Donettes are palpable bite-sized powdered donuts.
Each of you will need to make a snack-sized version of a dessert.
That miniature version of the dessert has to hit on flavor
and texture of the original dessert, and has to be portable.
Think you're up for the challenge?
-[Clara] Yeah. -Okay. Let's go.
You'll have two hours to make your snacks.
And your time begins now.
[upbeat music playing]
What we're looking for when you do something that will be
the large experience on the mini scale
is to invoke it, to have the experience of it.
What's the hardest part of doing that?
The ability to tweak and tease out all of these small details,
so we don't lose anything with a smaller size.
We get a full-size experience, mini package.
Mm-kay, let's do this.
I had bright red hair growing up. They used to call me Carrot Cake.
It was my favorite dessert growing up.
So, I'm taking the concept of carrot cake and flipping it on its head.
I'm gonna make a cookie made with the flavor profile of carrot cake.
I'm gonna take those cookies and sandwich a marshmallow.
I'm gonna pipe real cream cheese icing around the outside.
Then I'll enrobe the whole thing in a light layer of white chocolate.
It's a Cosmic Carrot.
This isn't a normal cake batter.
Kind of more cookie, cracker-y consistency.
It's a drier dough, but manageable. That's what I'm looking for.
Just like my sense of humor, dry but manageable.
[dynamic music playing]
After round one and winning,
it's not really going to my head because I feel like
I still have a lot to show in this round.
To shrink a classic, iconic dessert, I know right away I want to do tiramisu.
I'm gonna start off by making this really light coffee-flavored cake.
Then I'll layer that with frosting with a bit of Amaretto.
It'll be enrobed in chocolate.
And together, it should eat as one custard-y bite.
I actually like making a light airy cake for my layers instead of ladyfingers.
Hey, Lauryn B. What are you making?
Uh, so one of my favorite desserts is tiramisu.
Me too. I cannot get enough.
Then the bar is set so high.
Your nostalgic attachment to this is just you love tiramisu?
It's one of the first desserts I learned as a professional cook.
I worked in a lot of Italian kitchens.
My family now loves it because I forced them to, so...
-Forced tradition. I like it. -Yes. [laughs]
I love apple pie. I think, as the child of immigrants,
apple pie is so American and my mom didn't know how to make it.
Growing up, we'd eat a lot of crappy apple pie.
I became a chef and learned to make it much better than what you get in a store.
And so my vision is literally shrinking down the American apple pie,
filling my golden pie crusts with the delicious apple pie filling.
Then topping them with the pie rounds,
complete with slits and fluted edges to make it more authentic.
It all comes down to the crust.
If I can't nail a delicious crust, then I should go home.
I want it to be as flaky as possible.
I'll give it a long chill in the refrigerator.
I want all that fat to solidify so it'll give me a flakier crust.
[Sandy] I'm finishing up my cookie dough.
It's a sugar cookie dough. It's like an almond sugar cookie.
I was an orphan. I grew up in group homes and foster care.
I never celebrated my birthday, like, never.
And one of my social workers, she actually came on my birthday.
She gave me a banana cream pie as my birthday cake with a candle on it.
For me, it was the first time
I was acknowledged as a human being, you know?
So, it's just always been special to me.
I'm gonna make a snack version of a banana cream pie.
It's going to consist of nice marshmallow and banana buttercream.
A little dark chocolate.
Then an almond sugar cookie waffle crust.
I'll press in the waffle crust so they're mad thin.
Okay.
♪ Doing good, doing good ♪
I'm making marshmallows. I want them to set.
I'm using meringue powder for that extra bounce and fluffiness.
Oh my God.
That did not work.
The dough was way too wet.
The results were not good.
Yeah, I'm an idiot.
[Clara] Okay?
-Yeah, I'm starting over. -Okay.
[Hari] Ninety minutes left, chefs!
Ninety minutes!
Ali, what is it in our brains
that love the little cute and tiny versions of the bigger thing?
When you have a bunch of mini things that feel substantial,
it's a feeling of bounty.
In a lot of ways, Halloween candy is the patron saint of this challenge.
Everything is fun size.
It's not just cutting up a candy bar into smaller pieces.
Re-engineering needs to happen.
I'm going to start on the filling now.
I'm adding a bit of these caramel-y chocolate notes and cocoa butter,
because I want it to be a little bit thicker while adding flavor.
I want it to be creamy like a custard.
I want to whip that much like you would a buttercream.
The challenge with shrinking down a notable dessert is,
A, hitting all the flavors and textures that are nostalgic to everyone.
But then also packing in all that flavor and texture in that one bite.
I think I might add a bit more coffee extract.
Coffee's the biggest flavor of tiramisu.
It has a Frappuccino smell to it right now.
[Hari] Spreading some marshmallow.
Brought to you by the makers of Marshmallows One.
Now Marshmallows Two, back with more flavor.
When I feel really stressed out, I go into this thing where I'm imagining
I'm an announcer and I'm announcing what I'm doing.
These messages are brought to you by Cosmic Cakes.
If this goes to market, I'll put my name in the bids to do the commercial.
I don't know where I go. To weird places. It keeps me calm under pressure.
This is also my strategy. I'm talking loud and happy.
Mess with other competitors right now.
Try Cosmic!
Brought to you by top-rated chef Hari Cameron.
-Cosmic Cakes are the best! -That dude does not stop talking.
-Sandy, what's going on? -Sandy.
Just my normal messiness level.
-I love it, though. -[chuckles]
-Tell us what you're making, Sandy. -[chuckles]
I'm actually making banana cream pie.
Oh, I love banana cream pie.
I'm making a buttercream.
-[Megan] Oh my God. -But a banana buttercream.
I'm making a sugar cookie for the tart.
What are you doing now?
This is the sugar cookie. I actually made a sugar cookie,
but it was not sugar cookie,
-so I had to start all over. -Okay.
[Hari] Will you have time?
-Yeah, marshmallow's done... -[Megan] Yeah.
...which is the longest they take to set.
It's literally two minutes and I get two tart shells, so...
Good luck, Sandy!
Thank you, miss.
Bye, Hari.
Sorry, I call everybody "miss."
[Clara] I'm worried about durability. It's a really flaky dough.
Sometimes hand pies have thick crusts
because they need to be stronger to be kicked around and manhandled.
I want the dough to be delicate, but this is, like, wow.
I don't want a bag of crumbs. I want three individual pies.
I got to ruminate on this.
[upbeat music playing]
[Megan] One hour left!
-[Hari] One hour. -One hour.
I want them to be bite-sized.
I'm going to figure this out on the fly.
It's like a crumb coating. So, when I go to coat it in chocolate,
it'll be nice and smooth.
I'll encase the whole thing in a hard shell, kind of snappy chocolate.
There's no chocolate encasing in tiramisu, but there are chocolate notes.
My main worry with this tiramisu cake is
it's not going to hit all those marks of tiramisu that Helen knows and loves.
I want to make her proud.
They look nice. They look cute.
This is the part that, in the past, I messed up when I go too fast.
So, I'm trying to slow down, make sure I'm focused in the zone.
Making it happen.
In this frosting, I put my cream cheese, vanilla, and powdered sugar.
It's gonna give that classic cream frosting flavor
that's gonna kick that carrot flavor home.
I was trying to go for a cookie that looked like a planet.
I'm gonna pipe the cream cheese icing orbital circumference around the outside.
Does it look like a planet?
Little bit.
At this point in time, I need to be as perfect as possible.
I don't want to be the chef with a really bad mistake.
This is my white chocolate coating for the cakes.
When you enclose it in the glaze, it allows no moisture to seep into it.
It's like another shield of protection.
It's cosmic. That's what I was going for.
It reads Moon or Saturn's surface. I don't know, but it looks good to me.
[Clara] What's the best thing about America?
Apple pie.
It's delicious, but it's gonna fall apart.
So, I gotta encase the whole thing in a glaze.
I want it to be a continuous shell of sugar
to add another sugar force field to protect the shape.
Everything is about saving what's inside.
It's basically a sugar shield, but it also tastes good.
Twenty minutes left.
[Sandy, exhaling] Ugh!
It's a cookie. It didn't harden in the structure as much.
I like that better. Looks more like a banana cream pie.
Time is coming to an end.
I'm not sure if they're pretty enough.
I'm not sure if the chocolate is thin enough.
Basically I'm just questioning everything at this point.
I start glancing around at the other chefs.
Their mini desserts all look like they're coming from some high-end
catering-at-your-wedding website.
So I'm getting nervous.
I think my idea is good,
but I was going for low-end, live-on-the-shelf-for-six-months
kind of mini dessert.
I'm gonna pipe in the banana.
Then I'm gonna put this on top and flambé it.
[suspenseful music playing]
One minute, chefs!
I think they look cute, but I don't know.
[Sandy] There we go, baby.
[suspenseful music builds]
-And time is up, chefs. -[horn honks]
[exhales]
[Clara] Hello again.
-Hello. Thank you. -[Clara] You're welcome.
Clara, tell us about your snack.
So, I always want pie all the time, so these are Apple Pielettes.
Miniature apple pies that you can have any time of day
and not feel guilty about it.
-It looks familiar to existing products. -Okay.
How is this different from what already exists on the market?
The pies that exist on the market,
the crust is really thick and the apple filling is viscous and starchy.
This one delivers on true apple pie flavor.
I think it delivers on the flakiness, juiciness of the apple,
and that was really important to me.
[Helen] It definitely is more flaky.
-But it's also under-seasoned. -[Clara] Okay.
It's missing salt, it's missing sugar, it's missing caramel flavor.
-It's not apple pie-y enough. -Okay.
I disagree with Helen.
I think this tastes like I wish apple pie would taste.
-Thank you. -I find that...
[laughing]
One of the things I enjoy most about fruit pies is bright sour acidity.
It was impressive you were able to cook the utter bejesus out of those apples
without losing that acidic edge.
It's one of the first things out the window chemically
when you cook stuff a lot.
-I don't like the sugar glaze. -Okay.
I love literally everything else about this.
[Hari] Look at that. Wow.
"Oh, I like it." "I don't like it." It's a talking point. It's powerful stuff.
[laughter]
Thank you, Clara.
[Ali] Thanks, Clara.
Sandy, tell us what Banana Bangs are.
Banana Bangs are banana cream pies.
I did a little sugar cookie, a little dark chocolate.
Then I did a banana buttercream and a little citrus marshmallow.
-I would wear this as a necklace. -Yeah.
-Or an earring. -[Sandy] Everything stiff. Yeah. [chuckle]
[playful music]
One of the hardest things to do is make stuff feel moist and creamy.
It's brilliant to put a little coaster of chocolate on the inside,
just to make sure the super crunchy integrity of that base is preserved.
It tastes amazing.
My main flavor note is you can pull back on the sugar in banana cream.
-Okay. -[Helen] Yes.
It's not crazy sweet from eating when you're tasting it.
It's crazy sweet to eat the whole thing. Then you kinda can't eat a second one.
Especially because it has the marshmallow on the top.
But I like that you sort of made the rustic finish intentional.
Yeah.
When people panic about something isn't perfect, include it in the design.
Yeah.
-This feels like a million-dollar idea. -Thank you, sir.
Thank you.
Hari, my friend, what did you make for us?
Today I've taken my favorite dessert, which is a carrot cake,
and I did it in the version of a moon pie.
I really tried to make those graham crackers moist.
The other thing I tried to do was put some cream cheese flavor
in the marshmallow itself.
It's all, to me, about that spice flavor in a carrot cake
and cream cheese flavor as well.
I don't like the white chocolate.
Okay.
But when I got through that, I had, like,
-an acid trip transport moment... -[gasps]
...to, like, having carrot cake at my mom's birthday party.
[laughs]
The balance of spices that you have feels very spot-on
for a carrot cake in a cookie.
The marshmallow is an awesome texture.
The cream cheese notes come through.
Why is there white chocolate here?
It really is sealing the moisture that needs to be there.
I love the idea because I love carrot cake.
The cream cheese, for me, is lost.
I love that I find pieces of carrot. I think they're under-hydrated.
-Okay. -Totally fixable.
-Yeah. -Ditch white chocolate and we're talking.
Thank you very much. I really appreciate the feedback.
I would say handle with care just 'cause the box is a lot bigger.
Noted.
Lauryn B, will you please tell us about your snack?
So, I have Tiramisu Cakes.
I added espresso powder and coffee extract to the cake
to get coffee flavor because that's so iconic in the cake.
Then I tried to power that into the filling as well.
I added the chocolate coating to wrap up that moisture and complete it.
You're really good at making airy cakes.
Like, this... It's easy to make a cake that tastes good on day one.
I can tell you this is going to taste good on day 300.
-It tastes spongy in the right way. -[Lauryn] High praise. Thank you.
It's so hard to do. I would've wanted a bit more salt.
-Mm-hmm. -[Ali] Put it in the dough
so that it's in every bite.
Then put it on some kind of surface that's gonna hit my tongue first.
So, it really says, "Hey, how's it going?"
Okay.
I agree the sponge is amazing, but in terms of evoking the original,
it's tough to imagine tiramisu if you hadn't said it to me.
-I think it has to do with the outside. -Okay.
[Helen] The outside is so strong chocolate-y.
-Did you put coffee on the outside too? -I did.
It's a little strong.
Maybe a milky coffee and a tiny bit of cinnamon.
-Not because... -Oh, okay. I like that note.
Cinnamon and coffee taste lighter and it starts to feel like dessert.
-Yeah. -Thank you, Lauryn B.
Absolutely. Thank you.
Thanks for sharing your snacks with us.
Ali, Helen, tell us who your favorite was.
So, the chef we chose brought a great nostalgic item
with a very viable prototype we can see going into the market
after it's had some work.
The chef with the most impressive snacks...
-is Lauryn B. -Ooh.
-Yay! -Whoo!
You did it, girl. Congrats. So good.
I love the idea. I love the execution. Congratulations. Great job.
[chuckles] I'm the Cake Queen.
I knew it.
I don't know. I mean, I thought Sandy had it in the bag, honestly.
Super close.
You were just edged out by Lauryn's Ho Ho.
Ooh.
-[Lauryn] Yep. -Good work, Lauryn B.
Hope you keep that momentum going through the competition.
The judges have made another decision.
Vendee, who have they picked to go home?
[tense music playing]
Hari.
Hari, I truly think you would thrive in an R&D lab.
You've come up with a couple of the most dazzling ideas
we've seen in this whole competition.
I'd love to see you in an environment where you could have time
to flesh them out and fully nurture them to fruition.
Thank you guys so much. It's been a great experience.
I've learned so much and I appreciate the lessons and the friendships I've made.
[exhales, chuckles]
I'm, like, crying.
-It's all good. -You have the biggest heart.
It's all good.
-Do you want me to do it? -Yeah, maybe you could do it.
Please say your goodbyes.
[Hari] I feel pretty sad, but it's okay.
I know I've given it my best,
and I'm proud of the work and the snacks that I've created.
I'm gonna keep on snacking on.
Now, if you thought the Ho Ho was tough,
buckle up because we're headed to uncharted snack-making territory
with our next challenge.
You're all one step closer to going down in history
as a snack food legend and taking home that $50,000.
[closing theme music playing]