Top Chef: Just Desserts, Season 1, Episode 10, Quickfire Challenge, Winner

Muscovado Braised Pineapple:

• 424 grams milk
• 265 grams Crème Fraiche
• 318 grams yolks
• 50 grams sugar
• 64 grams flan powder
• 520 grams egg whites
• 305 grams dark Muscavado sugar
• 80 grams water
• 7 ea silver gelatin sheets, each

Sticky Coconut Cake:

• 500 grams egg whites
• 20 grams dry egg whites
• 166 grams suga
• 333 grams coconut
• 416 grams 10X sugar
• 83 grams almond flour
• 3 ea lime zest

Braised Pineapple:

• 2 each cleaned pineapples
• 3 liters strained orange juice
• 1 liter strained ruby red  grapefruit juice
• 2 each scraped vanilla beans
• 2 each star anise
• 3 grams black pepper corns
• 400 grams dark Muscavado sugar
• 200 grams light Muscavado sugar

Muscovado Braised Pineapple & Coconut Cake:

1. Bloom the gelatin in ice water, and drain after 10 minutes, reserve.

2. Mix the crème fraiche with the yolks, sugar, and flan powder (can substitute corn starch), and bring the milk to a boil. Temper into the yolk mixture and cook as a standard pastry cream, with a whisk. Bring to a boil and cook at least 20 seconds. Put mixture in a robocoupe with the drained gelatin and mix until smooth and emulsified. Reserve in bowl.

3. Combine the muscavado sugar and the water in a pot, and cook to only 118C (may need to stir as this will be THICK, and you don’t want it to burn). When it reaches 118C whip the whites to stiff, and make a standard Italian meringue.

4. When the meringue has cooled to about 50C, mix into the pastry cream which should be no hotter then 50C, and mix just until it’s blended.

5. Pour into a full sheet pan, and freeze. Then cut into 2” squares, then cut in half to triangles.

Sticky Coconut Cake:

1. Sift the 10x, almond flour and the coconut together.

2. Combine t he egg whites at room temp with the dry whites, and whip to a stiff peak, adding in the sugar towards the end to make a French meringue.

3. Zest the limes on top of the dry ingredients. Fold the meringue into the dry mix very lightly, until just combined, then pour over a full sheet pan lined with sil pat and bake at 380F just until done. The final cake should be very moist, almost sticky.

4. Freeze, and cut same as the chibouste above. Assemble the Chibouste, on top of the cakes, with the darker cake side, on the bottom.

Braised Pineapple:

Bring all ingredients except the pineapples to a boil, and pour into a deep hotel pan.

Place the pineapples in the syrup, and bake at 350F oven, rotating and basting the fruit every 15-20 minutes.

Fruit are done, when the liquid is a thin syrup, and the fruit is golden and caramelized, and has soaked up the flavor into the center. Approximately 2 hours. Let cool completely.

When cooled, cut the pineapples into quarters, then remove the center pith, then cut into about 2.5cm thickness “fan” shapes.