“Did you go out and decapitate these poor animals yourself?” Nick deadpanned.
“Is all the fruit sauce around the bottom supposed to be blood?” I asked her.
“Only the blood of my broken heart, Owen,” she said.
Anu raised her eyebrows. “Let's cut this open and see how it looks inside,” she said, sticking a fork into the reindeer's head.
“This isn't made out of Rice Krispies, is it?” I asked Amber, tapping the antlers. “Correct me if I'm wrong, Anu, but aren't the contestants supposed to do better than Rice Krispies treats?”
“These are special Rice Krispies,” Amber insisted. “They're made with almond flour, and there's a surprise inside.”
“It's all you, Mr. Badass Billionaire,” Nick said.
I broke one of the antlers, and red sugar spilled out.
“That's very upsetting.”
“The cake tastes pretty good though,” Anu said. “If you just ignore the packaging. I do like the moistness of the cake and the way you layered it with the black current liqueur frosting, the ganache, and the fudge. The fifties did like hokey stuff, but at least it's tasty. You have the flavors, and you don't taste pure sugar or cardboard like you do with a box cake.”
The rest of the desserts were all along the same vein. There were several variations of Jell-O cakes. Fiona at least had an imitative take on a French 1950s dessert called poached pears belle Hélène. She had made a perfect trio of French pear dumplings with cinnamon chocolate sauce and salted caramel ice cream.
“With Julia Child, Americans were just waking up to the joys of French cooking,” she told us as we sampled the dessert.
“Very rustic,” Anu said. “But refined. The chocolate sauce is the perfect consistency, and the caramel ice cream is actually very good.”
“You know how tired I am of ice cream,” Nick said. “But I feel like I could eat this all day.”
“You did have all day though,” Anu said, “and while this is tasty, we would expect something more with the time you had.”
“And for the final contestant,” Anastasia said. “Holly.”
“Ready for another taste of my Christmas cookies?” Holly said, winking at me. “Though today it's not cookies. Instead, this dessert is a reimagining of the perfect 1950s Christmas. We have a baked Alaska truffle, with chocolate sponge cake and dark chocolate and sea salt sorbet surrounded by a layer of chocolate and then a layer of scorched meringue.”
“How did you manage to keep it round?” Anu marveled, picking up the truffle.
“A good housewife never tells her secrets,” Holly said with a playful smile. “Also on the plate is an eggnog custard and a cape gooseberry gelatin.”
“This is magnificent,” Nick said. “I seriously need to take a picture. This is crazy!” He snapped photos with his phone then took a bite of the gelatin. “Lovely. I love that you took the crappy processed fifties food and completely reimagined it while still keeping the essence. It's brilliant.”
I scooped up several of the golden balls on the plate.
“Those are spice peach and rum spheres,” Holly said.
They burst in my mouth.
“The sauces are excellent. This is an award-winning dish,” Anu told her. “After those Christmas cookies, it's nice to see you strive for more.”
“There wasn't anything wrong with the cookies,” I growled. Holly smiled at me sweetly.
“I think the winner is pretty clear here,” Anu said after Holly went to the greenroom.
“Who are we getting rid of?”
“That reindeer head was disturbing,” Nick said. “I'm going to have nightmares.”
“It was better than the Jell-O layer cake with the fruit,” I said.
“I know. And you know me, I like my alcohol,” Anu said, “but with all the liquor Farrah put in the Jell-O, I felt like I was back in college doing Jell-O shot after Jell-O shot. Bad decisions all around.”
