Here are the Challenges
A photo essay
1. Spun Sugar
The first challenge was to do something with spun sugar. None of us even knew what it was. I did a birds nest with blueberry chocolate eggs on an ice-cream sandwich (out of the freezer). I think I won due to the art direction. I spent more time on the photo than the cooking. It might have looked good but tasted really bad because we burnt the sugar.
2. Choux Pastry
The next weekend we had to do something with Choux Pastry. Again, something I didn’t know. My little brother and I made churros. My cousin again went for a coronavirus bleach joke, but did make great cheese puffs for dinner. It was really tight between Moss and I because his looked amazing. This time I won due to the technical complexity of what I did. When Uncle Steve heard I’d piped chocolate into the middle of my churros.
3. Ice-cream Sundae
The Ice-cream Sundae challenge was Moss’s idea and he really did lots of research around the best ice-cream recipe and things to make it look good. I thought I better push my thinking even further. But I also thought of not pushing myself so Moss could win. Moss told me he wanted me to try my hardest. I did. 10 hours later I won again. This time Uncle Steve simply said, “Fuck Harper!” Moss’s was so good but I could tell mine was next level. This time I had extreme innovation —a good concept, art direction, and technical complexity.
4. Soufflé
The last challenge was a soufflé. Mom can’t believe how they just keep getting harder. Moss and I have never even eaten one, but we quickly learn how technically hard they are. I research the best soufflé in town and decide I want to make the Vue de Monde chocolate soufflé. Rafi has gone back to school in NZ so it’s just Moss and I now. Moss is determined to win. I just want to push the recipe a little so I make like a Mexican soufflé by making it spicy. I put chilli flakes in the ganache, cayenne pepper into the chocolate on the outside and chilli jam ice-cream.
This time the judge, Uncle Steve, said I had shown how I could be a perfectionist, who took risks, who tried to make the perfect soufflé even better. BUT my little brother began the challenge thinking “what would Harper do?” And this time he won. Because he did something with a soufflé that Uncle Steve had never even thought of. He put his lemon and raspberry soufflé inside a lemon! I didn’t mind losing to that…
