Alison visiting Sheldon.  meredith gearing up for a trip.  Sheldon accidentally uses the wrong mic... sigh.  It's ok - we salvaged it but Sheldon may sound a little different this week hahaha.  For scrummy delights, well, Mere battled a little stomach bug so laid it low, but Sheldon took Alison on a Pizza tour of Richmond and it didn't disappoint.   It was the much feared patisserie week!  Fancy desserts designed to be pretty and Paul and Prue expected excellence.   First though - first week that Sheldon thought Matt's shirt outshone Noel's!  Meredith disagrees.  We all wonder how much that necklace of Prue's weighed. Note:  Spoiler alerts for all below here!  Kicking off the challenges with "mini" Charlottes.  The name presumes that there is a normal sized one?  Pretty much "cake wall with trifle-like layers".  It was a mixed bag all around for this.  Some getting points for looks (which matter the most this week), some for flavor.  Sandro for the first time felt like he wasn't "cooking for the judges".  His were good, but again, overly complex.  We were all a bit confused by the judges' comments - it was hard to tell what was important.  All in all - we felt dead heat. Technical was set by "Prue-dini" and was a "vertical tart".  Ring of pastry, half disc of mousse, line of tart jelly, some whip, and ... Sandro's favorite... gold leaf touch.  He struggled though... the big thing was he misinterpreted the vertical... set him way back and he had to rush.  Was a mess.  Others struggles with mousse texture, pastry bake, or construction.  The winner pulled it out only because they were "least worst". Finals was "krokan" - had to be 60 cm or more tall... yikes.  We saw a mixed bag here too.  One had good intentions, but just didn't' execute on the top half... felt like they relied too much on the same old same old.  Another baker went with a very difficult and risky structure based on their career.  They pulled of a very difficult bake... but the decoration looked like a grade schooler did it.  The judges loved it though from a looks perspective, but not so much from a bake perspective.  Then ...a baker once again went very complicated and was trying to do a lot.  It did look ok... but lacked a finished look... just icing to cover up burned caramel.  But was enough to keep them alive.  The winner though - a nice surprise for all of us.  steady work, built a great design that showed off skills in the pastry piping itself.  Well deserved.   We forgot to talk scores but as it now stands: Alison: 25 Mere: 42 Sheldon: 13