- [Cindy] Wow.
- [Taylor laughs]
Oh, my God. I'm running so fast.
[Sara mock panting]
- [Vanessa] First things first.
- [Shanice] Action plan.
- [Menuka] Whoa! I like this.
- [Brandi] Oh.
- Chain Reaction Machine.
- Those never work.
- [Taylor] Five foot by five foot by three.
- [Sara] Three machines.
- [Jacob] One large themed dessert.
- [Shanice] Uninterrupted chain reaction.
[Renee] And finale dessert presentation.
[Menuka] This is cool.
Oh. Hey there, everybody. Welcome back
to our madcap pastry playground.
Something tells me
there's gonna be a lot of reactions today.
Specifically, chain reactions.
You ever hear of my old buddy
Rube Goldberg? He was a nice enough guy,
but always took forever
to get to the point.
Kinda like I'm doing right now.
Today, these bakineers will be building
their own giant,
edible chain reaction machines.
This is like an engineer's dream.
[upbeat music playing]
So, let's talk about Rube Goldberg
and his wacky machines. Who was this guy?
Rube Goldberg was an American engineer,
but he was also a cartoonist.
And really he became most well-known
for creating
these crazy chain reaction machines.
And they were
these overly-engineered complex machines
that achieved something simple in the end,
but these things became
a pop-culture phenomenon.
From a bakineering point of view,
we've told our teams to push the edible,
but actually we can go
beyond the food itself.
We wanna see a marriage of the edible
and things that helped make the edible.
Nice.
[upbeat music playing]
- [Brandi] Have you ever been tailgating?
- Yeah. One time. Pretty cool.
Let's do a tailgate theme.
- There's many things we can do with that.
- Oh!
I did this road trip
when I was doing, like, cakes,
and I stopped in every state,
I was antiquing.
- That's so cool.
- It'd be cool if we did a 1950s kitchen.
[Shanice] Okay.
What's cool about chain reaction machines
is that they incorporate
the basics of engineering,
which are the six simple machines.
What's the basic definition
for a simple machine?
A simple machine is
the basic fundamental machine
from which all other machines
are constructed.
You can remember them
by thinking "LIPS-dub-dub."
Lever, inclined plane,
pulley, screw,
wedge, and wheel and axle.
LIPS-dub-dub. By the way,
I saw "LIPS-dub-dub" at Coachella.
- They were fantastic.
- [judges laughing]
Let's talk about what the bakineers
have to bake and build.
Our teams will have 11 hours to create
an edible chain reaction machine,
which is made up of three simple machines,
and that final phase has to deliver us
a delicious themed dessert.
We can put it into a pulley system.
- Three pulleys.
- [Steve] Okay.
We'll have some sort of
support system in the back.
These could be made out of
rolling pins or something cute.
That makes a good pulley,
because it twists.
[Jacob] Exactly.
The dominoes can knock
a lemon off of a shelf,
that will cause this to rotate.
[Cindy] Okay.
[Joanne] From the baking side of things,
these bakineers are creating
incredible, edible, themed worlds.
I wanna see a variety
of edible mediums across all the machines,
and the options are limitless here.
But, ultimately,
the main purpose is that it delivers to us
a show-stopping magnificent dessert.
The ball will drop here,
and flip the lever
around that way, like that.
And then they'll open?
[Sara] And the oven will open like this.
Why don't we do
a spin on a pie as the final ta-da?
- Okay, okay.
- [Randi] You know?
What's your favorite type of pie?
- I think of apple pie right away.
- [Jacob] Same!
I'm Italian. You're from Peru. [chuckling]
Yeah.
Give me something to work with.
There's a food I like called lucuma.
- Lucuma.
- It's a tropical fruit.
It's like an avocado.
- I'll go get all our materials.
- Yes.
- Sounds good.
- All right.
- [upbeat music playing]
- [timer ticking]
Start loading onto this cart.
- I'm gonna take the mixer over.
- [Renee] Okay.
[whirring]
[Taylor] That's heavy! [chuckles]
- Hello, Joey, Mario. How are you doing?
- [Joey] Hello. How are you?
We're doing pretty well.
I think you'll be happy with our pieces.
- Tell me about it. [chuckles]
- Well, what we have is a chem lab.
Lab rats took over the lab,
imprisoned the professor,
and they're just having a bit of a mutiny.
We're gonna do the chain reaction
at a chem lab.
We have an edible isomalt ball
that is gonna roll down
from an inclined chalkboard,
going down a second ramp
and then hitting the lever.
The lever is gonna hit a second lever
that has a jawbreaker gumball.
It's gonna go down and hit a flask
that is gonna rotate
down an inclined plane,
that is gonna cause
a domino chain reaction
that will trigger a pendulum
to reveal our dessert.
You've been in the danger zone
for two missions now,
so what are you switching up today
to really wow us?
Rather than go on our own,
we did it together,
and on the dessert,
you'll see what we mean.
What are we eating today?
We're doing an Italian cheesecake
with a Peruvian glaze, which is a lucuma
- Did I say it correctly?
- Yeah.
Lucuma, okay. We'll make a glaze
of that to really show you
we really think of
Not just combined our cultures,
we combined our talents as well.
- Best of luck, gents.
- Thank you. Have a good day.
[timer ticking]
I wanna talk about the height.
'Cause this one's gonna come here, right?
And it's gonna hit this, and go just here.
We are creating a chain reaction machine
with the theme of "Life Is Messy"
in an edible kitchen.
It starts with a toy box on the floor
made of Rice Krispies
and fondant and chocolate,
down a series of stairs and ramps
over to a wall that has a series of levers
made of kitchen utensils
and tempered chocolate rods.
And then, it's gonna travel
around a corner, drop into another ladle,
and open up an oven,
presenting an amazing dessert.
[Rodolfo] I'm doing a cinnamon sponge cake
with apple filling and
- I forgot.
- Caramel buttercream?
- Caramel buttercream. I'm so sorry.
- [laughs]
- With a little bit of salt. [laughing]
- Yeah.
- I'll take over from here.
- I know. [chuckles]
Here, here, here.
Do you know what you're gonna do?
Make a ramp.
[Sara] We can still
make it look like a toy.
- We'll just have it come down like this.
- [Rodolfo] Uh-huh.
- Yeah.
- Right? Okay.
The most important part is a toy box,
"Victor's Box." It's my son.
It's gonna be kinda like a candy box,
like a toy box filled with candy.
[Rodolfo] He's nine years old,
so I wanna put his name up there.
Me and Victor, we make a mess at home,
and I love to have fun with my son.
Cooking. He likes to stay around us.
Sometimes,
if you have a very creative mind,
you're very messy.
[both laugh]
- [Rodolfo] Okay. Then
- They're gonna be
[Sara chuckles]
You get back in the kitchen!
- [energetic music playing]
- [timer ticking]
[machine whirring]
These lemons are, like, so perfect.
Our theme is "bees."
Bees are the beginning
of the massive chain reaction
that lets all these edible mediums exist
in the first place.
You can't really bake anything
without having bees as pollinators.
So, all of our chain reaction
is inspired by their chain reaction.
And they're so cute. They're just so cute.
Yeah, they are cute.
Well, they're cute in
- Yeah, they're cute. They're cute.
- They're cute.
- [laughing]
- Bees are cute. Let the record show.
At the end of our chain reaction,
it will present a lemon meringue tart
with edible rose petals, blueberries,
gold leaf and a shortbread thyme crust.
So Oh wow! It's a bee!
- [upbeat music playing]
- [timer ticking]
[Steve] I turn wood for a hobby.
So, I'm turning a wooden ball one day,
and I'm thinking,
"Wow. Why can't I do this with chocolate?"
We'd normally have to make a mold
to create a shape.
I can just go straight
onto the lathe and turn any shape I want
without even making a silicone mold.
I could just create it right there.
- I'm doing one more piece, Renee, okay?
- [Renee] Okay.
And then the lathe is finished.
Then it's a big cleanup of chocolate.
- [Renee] Hello! How are you?
- Hello, Renee. How are you?
I'm getting
a lot of cocoa vibes over here.
Oh yeah. We are all about the chocolate
here on Team Reeve.
Tell us a bit more
about your overall machine.
Our design all around is gonna be
very unique across the board.
We're doing "seasons."
Steve's doing a bird bath right now,
where there's gonna be
a water pump inside.
So, we start off with spring,
which is a birdbath made of chocolate,
and then the watering can
that's sitting on the birdbath
will pour into a pulley system,
which will release a ball.
The ball, in summer,
will roll down a slide through fall,
which is gonna be in a pumpkin patch.
When the ball reaches winter,
there will be a lever system
made of gingerbread
that will knock a New Year's bottle over
to release the New Year's treat.
So, there's gonna be
a ball there, balanced.
Right here. Yeah. And I calculated
through the entire thing
- [Hakeem] Yes.
- Calculated all of the angles.
This is gonna be the most precise thing,
once we put it together.
High risk, high reward kind of thing,
'cause there's a lot of stuff going on.
We have to work
close together to get this done.
- I'm pulling for you.
- Thanks.
I'm pulling for you.
I see the skill there.
- Just the matter of
- Execution.
- ex*cuted well, yeah.
- Correct.
Time is key, we won't keep you any longer.
- Thank you both.
- Thank you so much.
- Thank you.
- See you.
- [energetic music playing]
- [timer ticking]
- Right there?
- I'm doing this because with the lever
If it's not there,
the ball could just roll off.
So it needs to be guided down this ramp.
Growing up, I was really, really close
with my twin sister.
Me and my sister had always
formed like this little bond,
so it was just the two of us.
In elementary school,
there was a thing called Math Superstars,
and me and my sister would always do it.
That was one of the highlights
of our week. It is as nerdy as it sounds.
I'm currently a manufacturing engineer
for an aerospace company.
When I initially started in the industry,
I felt very unwelcome.
I think that's kind of sad,
because no one should be used to
constantly getting undermined
and belittled.
So, now I'm very proud of who I am
and how far I've come.
And I really want to help inspire
Black female engineers in the field
and be happy and proud in their skin.
Hello, Vanessa.
- [Vanessa] Hi.
- Hello, Vanessa. What is this?
- This
- My goodness.
These are gingerbread cookies,
but I'm making bookshelves out of them.
- [Joanne] What are these?
- So, these are our turquoise tiles
that we're gonna be putting on our floor.
- Is this made out of fondant? Fondant.
- [Vanessa] This is fondant.
For our chain reaction device,
we have about five simple machines.
Our first simple machine
is wheel and axle,
made using a cinnamon stick
with two isomalt wheels on the end.
Our inclined planes and declined planes
are made using gingerbread.
Our pulley is made using
a Rice Krispie bowl for counterweight.
And we use a gingerbread cloche.
Our final chain reaction is our cloche,
that gets pulled up
and reveals our strawberry shortcake
that is vanilla cake
with whipped cream filling
and topped with strawberries.
- We made a glass window.
- [Shanice] Mm-hmm.
What did you make the glass out of?
Is it isomalt?
I'm the proud owner
of One Love Cakes in Miami, Florida.
One of my biggest motivations
in opening my own business
was to be able to
fully employ my younger sister.
She was born with osteogenesis imperfecta,
otherwise known as OI, or brittle bones.
Which, basically, if I was to accidentally
tap her or push her,
one of her bones would break.
As we've grown up, it's so difficult
for her to find a stable and secure job.
So I opened up my own business
so that she could have a stable life
and then be able to
follow her dreams in the future.
- Keep learning.
- It looks great. Best of luck.
- Thank you!
- Thank you so much.
- [dramatic music playing]
- [timer ticking]
- [Shanice] Are you baking today?
- I am!
[Shanice chuckles] Me, too.
I'm stretching out some modeling chocolate
and getting it ready to outline
some honeycomb on our big board.
With the size of it,
I'm doing a lot more
A lot more baking. [chuckles]
- The magic is happening, Joanne.
- Aww. I like that.
[laughs] You're so happy.
The bakers and the engineers
are coming together.
[Joanne] Agreed. It's amazing.
[Andrew] Literal bakineering happening
between our eyes.
- [Joanne] They learn from each other.
- Exactly!
This is what I dreamed
these teams would be doing.
[upbeat music playing]
It's really like this.
That's what we want.
- [Cindy] What are you doing?
- [Taylor] Programming the switch
- that'll trip the heat g*n.
- Uh-huh.
[Taylor] Which is kind of trippy,
'cause I'm using honey as a conductor.
[Cindy chuckles]
- That's really cool, though.
- [Taylor] If it works.
[both chuckle]
- Hi, Brandi.
- [Brandi] Hey, how are you?
- How you doing? Hi, Menuka.
- [Menuka] Hey, man.
What can you tell me about, uh,
what we have to see today?
Well, tailgating is one of my very
favorite things to do in the whole world.
Uh-huh. It's better than the actual game.
It is. Especially if you're
a Kentucky football fan.
- But don't put that on camera.
- [Justin] I'll trust you. Yeah.
Our edible chain reaction machine
will be tailgate themed.
It'll feature a Kentucky backdrop
and in the end, a beautiful trophy case
made of isomalt panels
that will crack and reveal a trophy cake.
I decided to go with a
Funfetti cake, which I know is a risk.
It's kind of a basic cake.
Anybody can make a Funfetti cake,
but you have to make
a really good-tasting Funfetti cake.
But I really wanted
to encapsulate the atmosphere,
and that is something
we would have at a tailgate,
Funfetti cake with only blue sprinkles.
Go Blue or go home.
It's only a minimum of three machines,
but I think we should add more.
- Don't forget our time management.
- [Menuka] I know.
- [dramatic music playing]
- [timer ticking]
[Steve] This pulley system is not working.
[Renee] There's too much tension on it.
Uh
- Is it because this is backwards?
- If this is all the way down
Yeah, but look, it's twisted inside here.
It needs to go up over the top
and down the other side,
and not go through the loops.
- Okay.
- Yeah. Take it apart, and rewire it.
It won't work like that.
We realized that we bit off
more than we could chew.
I'm realizing
that my priorities need to change,
because no matter how good it looks,
it still is not gonna work.
So, we need to find the middle ground
between the engineering and the edible
so that we can have a working product.
[Steve] Cut this.
Rewire it.
And then we'll put those in place. Cut it.
[timer ticking]
Bakineers! We're down to three hours!
Ah! Stop the clock, man!
- [Menuka] Need more time.
- [Brandi] We need more time!
[Vanessa] Once we finish assembling,
we need to test.
[Joey] Ooh! Our rat fell!
He's cool, though.
A little busted ear, but we're good.
Can I get your attention, please!
Cindy and Taylor, you earned the boost
from the last mission.
Are you ready to hear what it is?
- Yes.
- Let's hear it.
[Justin] Are the rest of you
ready to be jealous?
- [both laugh]
- Okay, just making sure.
So, as you all know,
you have one shot to launch your machine.
And if it doesn't serve up your dessert,
it means you failed the mission.
Well, Cindy and Taylor,
since you won the boost,
when you launch
your chain reaction machine,
and if it doesn't work,
you get to try it a second time.
Yay!
- [Justin] A do-over.
- They get to try again.
I just want to clarify
that do-over could mean intervening
at any point if your machine fails,
or it could mean a complete restart.
- That's completely up to you.
- Got it. Thanks.
- [dramatic music playing]
- [timer ticking]
Oh, my God.
[machine whirring]
We've definitely seen
that the teams that take the time to test
are successful.
If it was me, I'd have a full trial run.
- If I could, but
- Right.
[Mario] Let's test them. Okay. Think.
We can't touch the dominoes,
'cause I just
- [Vanessa] How are we supposed to test it?
- It will work. I know because I kept
- No, we have to test it.
- Vanessa. It will be fine.
I won't go out and not test something.
- We have to test.
- You wanna set that up?
Know how long it took?
- We have extra dominoes.
- I'm not worried about them breaking.
Shanice, we have to test it out. We can't
just go out there and not test it out.
Do you know how long it takes
to set up dominoes?
I'll set them up myself,
but we have to test everything once.
It's very frustrating.
And I'm saying, "Test, test, test,"
and she's saying no,
to trust her that it'll work,
but things don't work like that.
Just because you calculated left, right
It doesn't work like that.
You need to test it out. I even know that.
- I know it'll be fine.
- That's not good enough.
We have to test it
and physically see that it actually works.
- [dramatic music playing]
- [timer ticking]
[Sara] That looks lovely!
[Joey] Come on, baby.
Come on, baby. Keep rolling.
- There?
- [Joey] The bottle has to be
- closer to the bowl, right?
- [Mario] Mm-hmm.
All right. I'm gonna have a heart attack.
- [Vanessa] Did you test this?
- I'm not worried about that.
- This needs to be attached to this.
- This needs to roll.
[Shanice] Has to work.
- Bakineers! Thirty minutes!
- [timer ticking]
Things just take more time,
and you just can't make it up.
- Are we gonna make it?
- [Menuka] We can do it, we can do it.
[Taylor groans]
I don't wanna let you down!
Or me down!
- That's gonna go there?
- Yeah.
It has to be weight-shifted to the front,
unless we're not going to make it bounce.
It has to bounce.
[Renee] We're gonna make it one big lever.
[Steve] Even if you have one big lever,
the ball goes down there.
Nothing's gonna
You need the opposite reaction.
- You don't have an opposite.
- I was trying to do two levers.
- [Steve] It's not gonna happen.
- Our original design
had three chocolate slides
that I had to condense into two,
based on time.
And, being that I changed the design,
my final gingerbread lever
was slightly off, dimension-wise.
What if we have the ball?
This is here standing up,
and the ball hits it and this goes, like,
inwards into the ball.
Like that.
I'm trying to be calm
and also realizing at the same time
that I look at the clock
and we're running out of time.
So, I have to be concise
with my gingerbread lever.
- I need the bottle attached here.
- [Steve] I gotta get some chocolate.
Teams, 15 minutes!
- [Menuka] Fifteen minutes.
- [Renee] Go.
[Steve] What do you need?
- [dramatic music playing]
- [timer ticking]
- [Renee] I need that glue g*n.
- [Steve] But there's no glue in it!
Could I borrow your glue g*n glue?
[shatters]
[Steve] What was that?
Steve and Renee just had a little bit
of a casualty fall off the front.
[Renee] No!
- Okay, okay. Um All right.
- [Steve] All right.
- All right.
- [Steve] Game over.
- [Steve] It broke.
- Can we make it out of wood?
We can try.
- You've got only five minutes left.
- Oh, my God.
Just need a little time.
[Rodolfo] Put the ball up there.
[Sara laughs]
Good thing we're testing.
[Taylor] I'll place
the edible flowers on the chute.
[Cindy] Okay.
Looks dumb.
- Can you tell me if the oven lights up?
- [Joey] Is that supposed to be here?
- [oven dings]
- Yep.
- [Shanice] Bowl's gonna break.
- If our bowl's gonna break,
- get the watermelon.
- [Shanice] The watermelon is too heavy.
One minute.
[groans]
[wood creaking]
[Renee] That's fine.
- [Joey] Gotta go straight.
- [Cindy] Wanna put a bee on it?
Yeah. Perfect.
[Renee] Steve, I need your help here.
- [Justin] Ten. Nine.
- [timer ticking]
- Eight. Seven.
- [Renee] It'll hit them!
- [Sara] Corner. Here.
- [Justin] Six. Five.
Four. Three.
Two. One. Your time is up!
- [Steve] It's gonna hit the floor.
- [Justin] Frosting and fulcrums down!
- What a mess. It's all good.
- [sighs]
[Menuka sighs]
Can I go take a nap now?
[dramatic music playing]
[Justin] Bakineers.
Welcome to your Baking Impossible
chain reaction machine stress test.
You'll come over to your station,
tell us about what you've created,
and then it's time for the activation.
We're gonna be hoping to see four phases,
and in that final phase,
you'll be delivering a delicious dessert
for us to try.
Up first, Team Rodolfo and Sara.
- [contestants applaud]
- Meet us at your kitchen.
[Sara] We went with the theme
of "Life Is Messy."
Especially around mealtime.
Now, we're just this close to be living
in the future and the smart home.
So, our machine is
representing that transition.
- What are your three simple machines?
- Inclined planes.
These all act as levers,
as well as the oven door,
which will be a lever,
and we have a pulley at the end.
[Justin] There we go.
- Who is Victor?
- [Rodolfo] That's my inspiration.
- [Justin] Your inspiration. Aww!
- That's my son, yeah.
So, I needed to put him somewhere here.
- How old is Victor?
- Nine years old.
So, he's the messy inspiration
to "Life Is Messy."
[laughs]
Is he the motivation for you
in the competition across the board?
- That's why I'm here. It's for him.
- [Justin] Good. Let's make Victor proud.
Let's do it.
[Rodolfo chuckles]
[dramatic music playing]
- [Sara gasps, exclaims]
- [all cheering, laughing]
[Sara] I'm so happy! That is so great!
- That was so satisfying.
- That was very satisfying.
- Whew!
- [Sara and Rodolfo laughing]
You have a machine that converts
potential energy into kinetic energy
and does that in four stages.
It really kept me on the edge of my seat.
It was delightful for us to watch it.
I think this is a very smart design.
Your use of edible, again, very clever.
I'm delighted to see everything that moved
was on an edible surface.
Your use of utensils
ties in with the theme.
- I think you've done a very good job.
- Thank you.
Rodolfo, Sara. Now that we have been
served up our tasty treat,
let's eat. Pull it out of the oven.
- Oh, it's hot.
- [Sara chuckles]
- [Joanne] It's hot.
- [Andrew] It's hot.
- I just wanna put my face in it. [chomps]
- [laughs]
[Rodolfo] It's a cake
that tastes like a pie.
- Oh, my gosh.
- [Andrew] That's not foil.
[Joanne] I thought
that was a cake in a tin.
- [Andrew chuckles] Thought it was a tin.
- [Joanne] Wow.
Hey, leave the illusions to me.
- Okay, guys?
- [all laugh]
[Rodolfo] It's a cinnamon cake
with apple filling
and salted caramel buttercream.
Rodolfo, what a clever idea to make a pie
that is actually a cake.
And what a well-done cake.
The sponge is light and fluffy.
The buttercream is really well-flavored.
The modeling chocolate
that coats the cake,
it's not really meant to be edible,
even though you can eat it.
I don't think any of us
are going to eat it.
The next time around, you can do really
strong Italian buttercream,
that would be delicious,
that could look just as realistic.
Wow. I love the balance.
If I close my eyes,
it is like I'm eating an apple pie,
so you completely achieved
what you were after.
Thank you.
All right, Rodolfo, Sara.
Thank you very much.
- [both] Thank you.
- [Justin] Head back to the teams.
- Steve and Renee.
- [contestants applaud, cheer]
- [Taylor] Yeah!
- [Menuka] Go get it.
[Renee] Our chain reaction machine
is all four seasons, and New Year's.
And the reason why we did this
was because I'm from the Northeast
and Steve is from Wales.
Now I live in California
and Steve lives in Florida.
- Florida.
- So we don't have seasons anymore.
[Steve] We're missing it.
We have a watering pump
that starts the chain reaction.
And then we have a pulley system
and an inclined plane.
Steve, Renee, let's see this
chain reaction machine do its thing.
- All right. Let's see.
- Go, Steve. [giggles]
Team Reeve!
I am ready.
[dramatic music playing]
[judges chuckling]
[Renee] We're watering summer. [chuckles]
- You sure you put it in the right place?
- Yeah, it's good.
[Steve] Pulley's moving. Come on.
- Just a few more drops.
- [Renee] You can do it!
- [Steve] Let's go. Oh, oh
- [Renee gasps]
- [Andrew] Yeah!
- [Renee] The fondant.
[Andrew] Aw.
- Fondant was holding it.
- What happened, Steve?
Well, the fondant I put in place
to hold the cup
stopped the ball from rolling,
I should've realized that.
Should've been thought out better.
Can you show us
what would've happened in an ideal run?
Let's have a laugh. We're gonna have fun.
And there it goes.
[Renee chuckles]
[Steve] Bye.
Clearly, something is missing
from your device.
What is that missing element?
There was a double-lever system
made out of gingerbread,
and then the gingerbread had
a chocolate champagne bottle,
but it was going to knock the chocolate
and break it,
revealing the New Year's drop the ball.
When I look at your simple machines,
not a single one worked.
Your water pump wasn't calibrated,
nor was your release mechanism.
Then, your inclined plane,
the inner diameter of the tube
matches the diameter of the ball.
That's a dangerous situation.
Your ball can get stuck.
I think you guys come up
with amazing designs,
but then, in the end,
there's some sort of disaster.
Let's just bring about New Year by force.
- All right.
- [Justin] Show us what our dessert is.
- [Steve] Destroy.
- [judges] Happy New Year!
- [all laugh]
- [festive music playing]
Steve, cut it up for us.
[Steve] It's a champagne zabaglione
with some strawberries inside,
and I made a simple syrup
with the champagne.
Then, I used a German-style buttercream
to create the dome.
And then I covered that in a fondant,
brushed with gold Luster Dust.
Steve, I love the idea of this dessert.
It is really moist
and creamy and well-balanced.
Thank you.
Were you happy
with the champagne zabaglione itself?
It looked like it split in places,
but that may be just
where the buttercream had been mixed in.
It did split. You picked up on that.
[frustrated grunts]
- [laughs]
- [judges chuckling]
I was hoping
nobody was gonna notice that.
Flavor-wise and the sponge
were really spot on.
Thank you.
- Randi and Jacob.
- [contestants cheer]
- Hello.
- [Jacob] How you doing?
I would like to introduce you
to the J & R Diner.
We really wanted to embody
the experience that you might have
at a classic diner in our piece.
There is a 25-cent quarter
sitting on the ground there.
If you insert that
into our gumball machine,
there's a little wedge in there.
The wedge is gonna nudge
a, uh, little gumball.
It's gonna go down our inclined plane,
made hastily out of a paper towel tube.
That's gonna knock over some levers,
also known as our
white chocolate dominoes, sitting there.
When the last domino
falls off of the diner stool,
it'll trigger our soda machine.
And as water fills up the cup,
it's gonna activate our pulley system,
which is gonna pull
our mustard bottle off of a switch,
which is gonna turn on the oven light,
and thus present your beautiful apple pie.
Should we take a trip
down Memory Lane to the diner?
Justin, if you wouldn't mind,
the quarter's sitting on the ground there.
- I'm gonna start it?
- [Jacob] If you wouldn't mind.
All right. Justin, you can activate
- the chain reaction machine in
- [drum roll]
- I have to talk to myself. It's just
- [all laugh]
It's how I function. In three, two, one.
[dramatic music playing]
It takes a second.
Whoa. [chuckles]
- [oven dings]
- [Joanne gasps] Oh!
- [chuckles]
- [all applaud]
You've successfully passed
the stress test. How do you feel?
- I'm excited. [chuckles]
- Yeah.
I'm glad it all worked.
We tested it exactly once?
- [Randi] I think.
- Exactly once, yeah. [chuckles]
Having someone who had nothing to do
with the building start it was a big risk,
yet it worked perfectly.
It pushed the gumball,
as it was supposed to.
The domino levers fell over perfectly.
Your soda machine worked so well.
- Great job.
- That was him. [chuckles]
I thought you went for
a very ambitious design,
executing a lot of your moving parts
at height.
There was a certain amount of risk to that
and it paid off.
I particularly loved your use
of the rolling pins in the pulley.
It is almost a shame that we got
a little cardboard tube going onto there.
It's the only element for me
that just sticks out a little bit.
Okay. Yeah.
In general, I think you've done
a good job, and it operated well.
Thank you, thank you.
Well, Randi, Jacob,
now that our dessert is illuminated,
it looks irresistible.
So, let's serve it up.
[Randi] We decided to come up with
our own version of a classic apple pie.
It is a vanilla cake recipe
with sautéed apples on the top
with Jacob's grandmother's
apple pie crust recipe
that I created as a lattice.
Your cake is mellow,
well-spiced, not too sweet.
- Beautifully done. Really fun.
- [Randi] Thanks.
One improvement,
bake the pie crust a little bit further.
It'll get flakier,
- the floury taste will disappear.
- [Randi] Mm-hmm.
It'll add even more caramelization
to the entire cake.
Thank you.
- Brandi and Menuka.
- [all applaud]
[Menuka] Brandi and I decided
to go with a tailgate theme.
We have five simple machines, actually.
It starts with
Brandi's gonna throw the bean sack
and hit the mark and flip
and dissolve the rice paper.
We have rice paper
actually attached like two counterweight.
One counterweight right here,
another right here.
That's gonna break apart,
activate this simple lever right here,
push the ball.
It's going to come down on the ramp,
and it's gonna hit this beam
and jump to here,
and push the wheel and axle, which
contain a little candle, burn the wire,
and release the jawbreakers,
and hitting the glass.
[Justin clears throat]
Wow.
Brandi and Menuka,
set off this machine in three, two, one.
[Brandi] Oh, no!
I only get three tries!
Oh, no!
- [Menuka] The break Piece is soaking.
- [Justin] Paper's dissolving.
[dramatic music playing]
[Andrew and Joanne gasp]
- [Joanne] Oh.
- Oh, my gosh!
Menuka,
why don't you show us just manually,
with the meatball, what it would've done?
- [Hakeem] Oh.
- [Joanne] Ah!
[Hakeem] It does do it.
So, hopefully, that's gonna burn the wire,
and release the jawbreakers
and hitting the
The glass.
I think the candle went
too much right there.
- [Hakeem] It's pretty far away.
- [Menuka] The candle went too far.
We need to get into that dessert somehow.
If these judges don't get their desserts,
they get hangry.
- [Justin] Yeah!
- There we go!
- [Andrew] There it is!
- [Hakeem laughs]
[Brandi] That's just so frustrating!
What happened?
I know we're both capable.
We both deserve to be here,
but, at the same time, this is
It's complicated.
I tend to overengineer too much.
It's very complex,
but, at the same time, I wanna have fun.
I want to challenge myself,
and I think that's the case here.
Your design was very high-risk,
from the velocity of the ball
coming off the first set of bread-buns,
to the candle actually burning
through the rope,
to the jawbreakers breaking the panes.
This was a very,
extremely high-risk design
and, unfortunately, because of that,
you did not pass the stress test.
Brandi and Menuka,
this cake could be your Hail Mary pass.
[Brandi] I went a little simple.
I did Funfetti cake,
added some Pop Rocks to the middle.
I hope that they're still popping.
[tense music playing]
Brandi, the cake is delicious.
It's really buttery and soft and tender.
I got a pop in the back of my tongue.
- Oh, good.
- There's a little residue.
So, I'm feeling
a little bit of a celebration.
It is sweet. Maybe finding a buttercream
that's a little bit less sweet might help.
It's hard in the South.
Everybody wants sweet.
Sweet tea, sweet cake
I'm from the South,
and I found it perfectly sweet.
- Thank you! [chuckles]
- [Joanne laughing]
Clearly, your machine didn't pass
the stress test. There was a lot going on.
You perhaps overstretched it slightly.
I think you gave yourselves
a lot to do today, to tie together.
- Thank you very much.
- [both] Thank you.
Cindy and Taylor.
- [all applaud]
- [Taylor] Ooh!
Our chain reaction machine is inspired by
the chain reaction of bees as pollinators.
We've got lever, inclined plane,
all of these nubs sticking out
act as pulleys, and this pendulum.
Now, Cindy and Taylor,
as you remember, you won the last mission,
and your advantage from that is
that if your chain reaction machine
happens to fail the first attempt,
you get a do-over.
[Andrew] That do-over
could mean intervening
if any part of your machine fails,
or it could be a complete restart.
That's completely up to you.
Cindy and Taylor. You ready?
- [both] Yeah.
- Okay.
[dramatic music playing]
As the honey's flowing,
it's increasing mass
on the top of this little foil cup.
Once it's sufficiently heavy,
the top of the cup will connect
the circuit,
which will trip this heat g*n.
As pendulums do, they want to be
in the middle of their swing.
[groans] It is actually flowing,
like, two millimeters away.
No, I don't think so.
I would love to use
my one touch to touch this.
[heat g*n whirring]
So, now we got a heat g*n.
[Andrew] Oh!
- [Taylor and Cindy laugh]
- [all applaud]
[Justin sighs]
Yay.
As far as your engineering goes,
you had a really nice design,
but I feel like,
even though it's really simple,
you overengineered it.
You had two elements
that just were too complicated.
Luckily, you had the advantage
from winning the previous mission.
This is a very Cindy and Taylor design,
lots of delights for the eye,
but it perhaps isn't as cohesive
with the theme as I might have hoped.
Why are we finding kitchen equipment
in the middle of this bee sanctuary?
Could this stool that we've got,
could we've made that into a hexagon,
- so it's a nice framing for your dessert?
- Definitely.
Bringing them more together
would've worked a little better here.
Now that our dessert has been adorned
with edible flowers,
let's serve it up.
[Cindy] It is a lemon meringue tart
with a thyme shortbread crust,
fresh blueberries
and edible rose petals on top.
The meringue is beautifully done.
The curd is nice and tart,
nice and balanced.
The crust is thick
and underbaked.
I would roll it out thinner next time.
Bake it a little bit longer.
Okay.
Cindy and Taylor,
you can head back to the teams.
- Joey, Mario.
- [all applaud]
[Joey] First, we'd like to introduce you
to our chemistry lab.
As you can plainly see,
the lab rats have taken over.
- [chuckles]
- We are are using inclined planes,
or declined planes, in this case,
that are gonna bounce back
and they're gonna trigger a lever.
And then,
we're gonna trigger this second ball.
The first one
that I'm gonna use is gonna be
an iso-ball.
Which is gonna trigger this flask
that's gonna roll down,
gonna push a second jawbreaker,
and then it's gonna start
a chain reaction domino effect
on our flasks and test tubes,
which are gonna trigger our pendulum
to finally reveal the secret dessert.
Joey, Mario,
let's see if this lab rat mutiny
will deliver the judges their treats.
Okay. Here we go.
[dramatic music playing]
[all cheering and laughing]
Good job, buddy.
How do you feel?
- Awesome.
- Relieved.
- [judges chuckle]
- It's a successful mission.
Finally feels good.
I'm really impressed.
That seemed to go exactly to plan.
There's no hitches there at all.
- Thankfully not.
- Thankfully not.
From your cheese declined planes
to your many levers,
tumbling dominoes and lab flasks,
all of your machines worked beautifully.
Well, now, the fun part. We get to eat.
[Joey] It's an Italian cheesecake.
On top, we have a lucuma.
A Peruvian national fruit.
And I did a praline crust on the outside.
Well, I am very impressed
by this Italian cheesecake.
- Wow, thank you.
- [Joanne] It is really well done.
- Thank you.
- [Joanne] It's light.
It's a bit grainy,
which Italian cheesecakes are,
but it's actually a pleasant graininess.
It balances out really well
with the citrus that's in here.
It looks like the praline crust
is a bit overbaked.
- Yeah. I did notice that.
- But it's really delicious.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
The inside of this cheesecake,
that is a perfect texture.
The flavors are excellent,
and I think
it's a real marriage made in heaven.
Thank you so much. Thank you.
Knowing the judges and their palates,
where they've been around the world,
I just was humbled and, uh
And blown away by how much they loved it.
- You're right. I might cry.
- [fake sniffs]
I can't be more proud.
I poured my heart into this one,
and I'm glad they loved it.
- [exhales sharply]
- Joey, Mario, thank you guys so much.
[contestants applaud]
- Vanessa and Shanice.
- [contestants applaud]
[Vanessa] Our chain reaction machine
is a 1950s grandma's kitchen.
We will start off the whole chain reaction
with an isomalt ball at the top here,
go down a few incline planes,
go up a declined plane,
activate a lever,
which will then go down another plane
and fall onto the spatula,
causing the pulley to be activated.
Everything pretty much is edible.
You ready?
- I guess so.
- [Justin] Okay.
[dramatic music playing]
- [Andrew gasps]
- Ooh! So close, so close.
- [Shanice whispers] Okay.
- [Joanne] Close.
So close. What happened?
Our isomalt ba*ls are starting to get
really, like, tacky.
We didn't test it
as much as we should've either. So
I think we didn't test it at all.
Why didn't you test it?
We just didn't have
a ton of time to test it.
Well, Vanessa, Shanice,
do you wanna kind of
pick up where your machine left off?
So, our ball would have fallen here
and nudged this
and would've done something like this,
- and opened.
- [Joanne] Oh!
- [Vanessa] Our cake's in there.
- [Justin] It is.
- And our window opened.
- [all exclaim]
[Joanne] Yeah!
All right. Will you slice that up
and serve the judges?
[Vanessa] I wanted to do something
that brought us back to the 1950s.
I went for a strawberry shortcake
with a whipped cream frosting.
I think one of the risks
in making a dessert that is iconic
is that everybody has an idea
of what an ideal strawberry shortcake is.
- [Vanessa] Right.
- So you have to knock it out of the park.
- I don't think I've ever tried one before.
- [Joanne] Really?
- Yeah. [chuckles]
- If you haven't tried one before,
I'm curious as to why you decided
to bake one for us
for your big dramatic revealing dessert.
The cream is light and very flavorful.
I like that there's
a little bit of citrus.
This is a little bit denser
than I'd expect a strawberry shortcake.
Yes.
I think you took a really big risk
trying something you haven't done before,
and while components of it are tasty,
it doesn't work for me as a whole
as a strawberry shortcake.
I understand. [chuckles nervously]
Vanessa and Shanice, I really like this.
You've gone for quite a clean design,
and everything I look at,
I can see edible.
It was maybe just a few elements
where you could've had a little barrier,
perhaps at the end
of the gingerbread shelves,
to make sure things go
into the right place.
You stretched yourselves today,
so I applaud you for that.
- Thank you.
- Thank you.
Please, let this mission
be a learning lesson for you.
If you move forward,
- you have to test as you build.
- [Shanice] Mm-hmm.
- All along.
- I agree.
Vanessa, Shanice, you can head back.
Judges, you've got
some deliberating to do.
We'll give you a little privacy.
I'll hang with the bakineers.
[dramatic music playing]
[Joey] We've almost been
eliminated twice.
I'm feeling incredibly confident
that we will not be,
but judges did mention
the outside crust was a little overcooked.
I'm worried that that could hurt us.
[dramatic music playing]
Bakineers.
The action here today was kinetic.
Some of your machines worked flawlessly.
While others might have busted a chain.
But first, let's get into the good news.
Rodolfo and Sara.
Joey and Mario.
Congratulations.
You are the top two teams in this mission.
Rodolfo and Sara,
I loved your use of both edible
and inedible items from the pantry.
We were really impressed
with your final dessert,
especially that illusion at the end.
Joey and Mario, there was a lot of detail
to delight the eye,
and you showed
some really good engineering today.
I also really enjoyed your cheesecake
and the fusion of cultures you showed us.
Without further ado,
the winning team today is
[whimsical music playing]
See, this is a little machine
I've been busy making,
and I would love to show you what it does,
but I need a magic rope.
[snaps]
[contestants chuckling]
Oh.
[all laugh]
Magic rope. Should I pull it?
- [all] Yeah!
- [Andrew] Go for it.
[dramatic music playing]
[upbeat music playing]
[all cheering and applauding]
Ta-da!
- [Sara and Rodolfo laugh]
- How do you guys feel?
- Relieved.
- Relieved. [laughs]
You guys engineered your creation
to a tee.
You took the energy
from the bottom to the top,
and that took you to the top.
Congratulations.
So, that leaves us with you five teams.
Cindy and Taylor, Randi and Jacob.
Congrats, you guys are safe.
Steve and Renee.
Brandi and Menuka.
Vanessa and Shanice.
One of you will have faced
their last mission in this workshop.
Steve and Renee, you impressed me
with one of the most beautiful pieces
I've seen made in this kitchen.
After the last mission, I told you, Renee,
that I was beginning to see a trend.
Well now, we hit time number three,
and our engineering failed again today.
So, Renee, you have to pick it up
if you're gonna continue.
Vanessa and Shanice,
there are so many parts
of both your design and your baking
that I really love.
But the fondant work
was a little bit messy
and the strawberry shortcake
was a lot denser and heavier
than I expect
in a great strawberry shortcake.
Brandi and Menuka,
I think you were overambitious today
in how much you took on.
And whilst I enjoyed some elements,
I think there was too much going on.
I'm sorry to say
Vanessa and Shanice,
today was your final mission.
Thank you guys so much. Good luck, guys.
- [all applauding]
- Good luck!
[Vanessa] This opportunity
was huge for me.
I'm still taking so much from it,
but I just
I wish I was able to make it further.
I really wanted to
[sniffles]
show more.
[Shanice] Though we didn't get as far
in the competition as we wanted to,
I think we really did learn a lot
getting to this point, you know?
And this experience has changed my life.
Well, what do you guys say?
Wanna take a swing at the next mission?
I don't wanna
club you over the head with it,
but, uh, we're talking about
a golf mission.
Andrew, everyone knows
mini golf is a team sport.
Yeah, of course.
- It's not a team sport. But it is today.
- [mouthing words]
So, for this mission,
you'll be working in two teams.
We'll have the Green Team,
which is this side of the workshop.
Rodolfo and Sara, Brandi and Menuka,
and Joey and Mario.
And then we'll have the Yellow Team,
the other side of the workshop.
Cindy and Taylor, Randi and Jacob,
and Steve and Renee.
You guys ready for an action-packed round
of mini golf-themed bakineering?
[all] Yeah!
[Justin] Well, let's do it!
[upbeat music playing]
[female announcer]
Mission launch in three, two, one.
- Go.
- Go.
Golf clap for encouragement.
- [judges clapping softly]
- [electronic dance music playing]
[theme music playing]
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01x03 - Sweet Chain Reactions
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Each episode presents a cast of contestants with a challenge that combines baking with engineering, often described using the portmanteau "bakineering".
Each episode presents a cast of contestants with a challenge that combines baking with engineering, often described using the portmanteau "bakineering".