Plot Synopsis

Each week, four of America's premier pastry chefs face off in three dessert challenges as they try to impress master pastry chef Ron Ben-Israel and avoid elimination on one contestant's path to the $10,000 cash prize. In each round, the competitors are given an inspiration and a set of mandatory ingredients. In the first round, the chefs create frozen delights using ingredients like: spicy hot candy and a rare fruit, with darkness as inspiration; salt & vinegar potato chips, with heels as inspiration; candied ginger and squid ink, with butterflies as inspiration; sweet and sour mandatory ingredients, with a jellyfish in a tank as inspiration; or jelly beans and hot sauce, with a very Zen object of inspiration. During round two, the chefs make baked desserts featuring: a bejeweled egg and a bottle of bubbly; a reptilian inspiration and a childhood treat; a luminescent inspiration and a gelatinous ingredient; diamonds, duck fat and fusilli; and a fabled one-horned creature and a foul-smelling fruit. Finally, Chef Ron Ben-Israel gives the remaining two chefs a chocolate test using: bone marrow and sand as an inspiration; masquerade masks and candy apples; a favorite childhood amusement and including a fowl ingredient to create chocolate desserts; a colorful inspiration that meets a dark beverage; and a disco ball as inspiration and carbonated candies. Season 3, which opened on Thursday, October 18, 2012, featured holiday-themed episodes for Halloween (Oct. 25), Thanksgiving (Nov. 15), and Christmas (Dec. 6).