Friday, February 19, 2016

Week's Finale is here!!!

I am pinching myself, I am in week’s finale!!!! I didn’t imagined myself standing here. But yes I am here :-)

We all were nervous this morning and was bit tired after loooong week. The dressing room was much quieter today. I was feeling so lucky that I had my husband beside me and could lean on him and close my eyes for few moments.

Today’s challenge was to make Ricotta Cheese cake with Lemon and chocolate garnish. Ricotta cheese is used in Italian cooking. If I can compare it is quite close to cottage cheese but with much softer texture. It is a very interesting challenge and tricky too. Ricotta cheese can bring heavy texture in the cake. So, it was important to balance the flavors.

I planned to make Mango Ricotta Cream Cheese cake with Lemon curd and caramelized pine nuts for topping. For the crust I used Digestive biscuit, cinnamon and pine nuts for crunch. And of course I used cinnamon in cake and lemon curd :-)

I learned from yesterday’s incident, so this time I was planning to make mini cakes instead of big cake. Mini cake takes lesser time to bake and lesser time to cool down in the fridge.

Judges were emphasizing on the importance of chocolate garnish. They wanted to see our technique of tempering chocolate. I wanted to make chocolate basket.

Yesterday, as per Judges my Lemon curd was bit too strong for them. Today I had to make sure that Lemon curd doesn’t overpowers the rest of the cake. I had to strike a balance between heavy cheese texture and tangy flavor from lemon curd. Pine nuts are very special to me, I use them a lot in Italian dishes. Ricotta cheese and pine nuts is a very good combination. Caramelized pine nuts are absolutely delicious and would give crunchy texture against creamy and soft texture of cream. Fridtjof was surprised that I was using pine-nuts in a cake.

Discussing about Pine-Nuts

In between I could hear the judges were discussing about the flavors I am using in the cake. Like Mango, cardamom, lemon curd etc. They were very fascinated by the concept of using Indian Mango pulp in a cheese cake. As per them it has never happened in the history of Kakekrigen and they were looking forward to taste my cake :-)

Some laughs with Judges

Today I didn’t had the time to look around (as usual ;-)) and see what others were baking.

Things were going as per plan........

Judges watching my creativity

I was happy with my mini cakes, lemon curd was fine but I was bit stressed out about the Chocolate Garnish. My chocolate basket didn’t turned out the way I wanted it to be. Luckily I had a backup and used the mold to create chocolate spirals. As count down started I gave final touches to my cake with some berries and chocolate on the plate.

End Result

Then I turned around and looked at other cakes. Everybody finished on time and their cake were also looking nice.

Till now I didn’t thought about if I am going to win or lose. But now my heart was beating fast and I felt the urge to win. Every passing second felt like ages, just like a slow motion movie :-).

Moment of Truth .......

Judges began with tasting and my cake was the first one. They were happy with the appearance of the cake, could taste mango, liked the crunch from pine nuts and lemon curd was refreshing. Overall they liked the cake. I was super happy and relieved.

Finally, we were standing facing judges and they began by praising each of our strength. Till now, it was not sure who will win.

And then Fridtjof announced………………… winner of the week is ............ Pallavi.

I couldn’t believe it. Everything stopped for a moment and I was in shock. Is it really happening, have I heard right, did he said my name......Yes yes yes, its me :-)

It was not over yet, all the cameras were rolling and Fridtjof was asking about my experience. Then I composed myself and said that I learned a lot during this process and very thankful. Same time I am very proud of my background and where I come from.