We kick off the episode with baking adventures. Sheldon’s… were not great. Choux buns, pastry cream, and chocolate ganache. The pastry cream - ok. Tasted great, but not as silky as he wanted. The choux pastry, the batter was a bit thicker than he wanted so it was a bit difficult to pipe, but he was able to form buns and out of the gate they seemed to rise nicely. Recipe called for 425F at 20 minutes, and he went to pull them at about 17-18… they were badly overdone. Sigh. Had enough for a second batch and they came out ok (but not as hollow as they should have been). The ganache was a disaster… should have been simple… and he dipped all of his chop buns in it… but it was like syrup. Essentially ruins them all. It was a “lesson” week for Sheldon. Alison also baked and took on ALL kinds of stuff including true French macarons in a churro flavor (they looked amazing). She filled them with true made dulce de leche!!! She also had one scrapped bake with her attempt at millionaire shortbread, first time using molds led to a white chocolate situation that messed up the batch despite having great shortbread and a chewy delicious caramel. She also made her always popular Neapolitan cookies and a coconut lime cookie that also looked delish. Spoilers for E2 below. With the professionals this week the first challenge involved making a “perfect cube” dessert and a mushroom illusion. The team thought the concept of the cube was… well.. boring. Especially when several of them choose the exact flavor profile! All but one team used molds and that one team paid the price when Cherish brought out the ruler…this seemed a little silly. Andrea’s cubes didn’t fare that well and she was pretty upset. We also felt that the criticism of some of the “neatness” was a bit off. The mushrooms… fairly boring. Julien and Elise were the only ones that really brought the house down in this challenge. Merryn and Sher had a tough go of it. The Showpiece challenge was macarons. - Heroes and Villains style. Most of the teams were realllllly loose with that theme and didn’t do a great job capturing the spirit. Some interesting mixes of flavors though including dark chocolate and Whiskey, and salted chocolate. A lot of pieces seemed to be falling off of the designs… Julien and Elise recovered from a near disaster when 2 tiers of sugar work were broken. Kevin and Maria Vittoria’s as a bit… odd and honestly, not very attractive. Unfortunately, Merryn and Sherr’s troubles did not end in round 1. Their cookies were falling apart just sitting there and then just as they were to be judged… their whole nougatine structure collapsed. No surprise… this didn’t end well for them. One observation - Sheldon has a lot of power tools that are being underutilized… Our assessment of the episode. Not great. Overall: about 3.5… Not quite “The Flavor is There” more “The flavor is there …but a little stodgy”