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by Trisha Mee
These sweet treats pushed the boundaries and raised a nation’s expectation of what defines a ‘great dessert’. Ice cream scoops have been replaced by perfectly formed quenelles, pastry has to be made from scratch and there is only one chocolate on the block - the tempered kind, where quality is judged by the crispness of the 'snap'.
In last night’s episode, the MasterChef hopefuls were set the challenge of recreating chef Shannon Bennett’s Chocolate Peanut Bar complete with peanut caramel, nougat and the ever important ‘theatre’, i.e., tempered chocolate melted by warm, gooey honey caramel sauce. This got us thinking about the other drool-worthy desserts we’ve seen in past seasons, which resulted in this list of the four desserts we’ll never forget.
Chef Shannon Bennett's Peanut Chocolate Bar l Image: tenplay.com.au
Behold the towering masterpiece by dessert king Adriano Zumbo. Our eyes were wide and our mouths were open as the pyramid of custard filled puff balls made its entry into the MasterChef kitchen in season one. We were in awe of its complexity, mesmerised by the spinning toffee and given the chance we would have taken a profiterole from the bottom to see what would happen. Are we right?
Image: tenplay.com.au
In season two of MasterChef, Adam Liaw and Callum Hann were faced with the seemingly impossible task of creating chef Peter Gilmore’s guava and custard apple snow egg. The poached meringue egg had a ‘yolk’ of custard apple icecream and sat on top of a layer of guava puree, vanilla custard and guava granita. Not surprisingly, it sparked a booking frenzy at Sydney’s Quay restaurant for months after the episode aired.
A new take on a classic Aussie favourite the ‘Gaytime Goes Nuts’ had audiences recalling their last Golden Gaytime fling. Chef Christine Manfield’s creation in season four made us want to climb through the TV for a taste, but instead we had to settle for a quick dash to the servo to satisfy our craving.
Bernard Chu of Melbourne-based patisserie Lux Bite, went against every mum’s advice to not eat all our lollies at once when he created his Lolly Bag cake in season five. Incorporating nostalgic flavours of spearmint leaf, bananas, Freckles, Jaffas, Redskins, and musk sticks, Chu delivered something straight out of our childhood dreams.
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