I’ll admit it - I’ve probably watched hundreds, if not thousands, of hours of the Food Network, a television network (with international subsidiaries) that airs shows about food discoveries, creations, and competitions (many which feature renowned chefs). My favorite type of show would always be the competition shows - whether it was Chopped, Cutthroat Kitchen, or one-offs like the Restaurant Express.
I’m a bit (maybe a lot) competitive, and throughout the quarantine we’ve seen families, roommates, etc. cooking together while staying indoors, but due to my competitiveness (and a bit of a routine cabin fever feeling), I decided to stir things up a bit recently. I thought “why not have a cooking competition?!” It turned from a great idea to a full-on event. For this competition, however, we decided to base our creations on baked goods/desserts.
First, ground rules were laid:
- No researching recipes/ideas until right before the competition
- Only allowed 15 minutes to explore ideas/recipes right before competition
- Every person for themselves in terms of ingredients and appliances, accessories, and machinery to use - this includes the oven
(if an ingredient runs out, improvise!) - We set the oven to pre-bake to a fair temperature to accommodate everyone, and once it “beeps” and reaches the temperature, the competition begins
- Each competitor has 45 minutes to create and bake their dish
Leading up to the “beep” from the oven, things were pretty tense. I am terrible with numbers, so remembering not only ingredients, but specific amounts for each ingredient, was pretty difficult, but a fun challenge for everyone ultimately.
Once the oven “beeped,” we were off to the races! The competition itself and us three competitors frantically running around the kitchen to create the perfect dish was pretty intense. I may have gotten in an argument or two over the Kitchenaid mixer 
, but its all in good fun and good spirits as we all tried to outdo each other.
I went with a simple, yet sort-of-out-of-ordinary strawberry cheesecake recipe. After the competition, I confirmed that I actually had done a great job at memorizing the recipe and only miscounted in terms of the baking soda. I also almost left out a HUGE, HUGE component in the final mixing of my cookies - the flour 
. Thankfully, it made it in last minute.
The other dishes created by my competition (fiance and her brother) had me sweating from nervousness as I hoped to take the crown 
. They created a mocha creme mousse with a butter cake base and layers of chocolate and a mouse infused with coffee; and a butter cake topped with chocolate chip cookie dough with cookie dough truffles on the side with a strawberry compote/glaze decorating the dish, respectively.
Needless to say, I was worried about the state of my cookies versus their desserts and presentation. Thankfully, my cookies were fully cooked (which was my fear), so it was off to the judging round.
We created a simple way of judging format on notecards where we would taste the dish, present our comments, and then score at the end. We scored from 1-10 based on the following:
- Presentation
- Smell
- Texture
- Creativity
At the end of judging, comments, and getting very full of desserts (I recommend cutting your recipes in half unless you want leftovers), we presented the scores and I actually tied for first place!
All in all, it was a fun idea to get our blood and minds flowing from the routine of being indoors, and it resulted in some great dishes and a nice cardio workout doing dishes the next morning. I would highly recommend it!
Do you enjoy food competitions/shows? If you were to conduct your own competition, what cuisine/style would you focus on?
Thanks for reading my post! 
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even the mocha creme mousse looks heavenly.
. But that show sounds pretty interesting - especially with that many ingredients and I’m sure they varied in flavors as well. It’s difficult to mix a lychee with perhaps with aged cheese lol. Glad you enjoyed my post, thank you!
