Heather Chittum, RAMMY award-winning pastry chef at Hook restaurant in Georgetown, was the most recent cheftestant to be booted from Bravo’s sweet new franchise, Top Chef: Just Desserts. In an unfortunate turn of events, Chittum’s desire to make marshmallow-filled whoopie pies for the bake sale team challenge was derailed by her teammates’ determination that two desserts with marshmallow would be a mistake (teammate Yigit Pura was already planning to make homemade marshmallows to top his chocolate and ginger pudding—how that trumped Chittum’s marshmallow confection is unclear). Instead, the teammates suggested that Chittum make a peanut butter cookie. She briefly and feebly protested, but quickly acquiesced.
Chittum then gathered all the peanut butter in the kitchen at her station, and – finally taking a stand – refuses to share it. After being chastised by the other team for hoarding the peanut butter, which one of the contestants needs, Chittum predictably relents, and shares the peanut butter. (This several minute exchange was not quite “pea-gate,” but that didn’t stop Bravo from attempt to create drama in the show.) Chittum’s resulting cookies come out looking tasty, but unremarkable and run of the mill.
After Chittum’s team loses the challenge, they appear at judge’s table, where Chittum tries to explain the frustration she felt at having her planned dessert overruled. The rest of her team attacks her for implying that she was forced to make something she didn’t want to make, and again, Chittum recoils. With the contestants standing in front of them, the judges note that while the cookie was tasty, it was ordinary and could be thrown together by a housewife (a clear insult delivered by guest judge and wedding cake impresario Sylvia Weinstock.) When the contestants return to the stew room to await their fate, the judges note that Chittum seemed to be taking one for the team in agreeing to bake the cookies, but that the cookie seemed to have been made with a lack of enthusiasm and a great deal of reluctance. As judge Dannielle Kyrillos, editor at large for Daily Candy deliciously quipped: “You could almost taste the resentment in her cookie.”
Whoopy Pies
Meanwhile, back in the stew room, poor Chittum is once again being verbally attacked by her teammates, with Yigit ironically calling her selfish (despite her choice to accept the assigned cookie in order to allow Yigit to make the marshmallow), and Chittum tentatively and ineffectively trying to defend herself. Returning to judges table, Chittum is told her cookie was ordinary and uninspired, and is sent home. In the exit interview, Chittum rightly notes that she fulfilled the challenge requirements—that she both made an appropriate bake sale item (unlike the financier made by cry-baby bad boy Seth Caro) and was a team player. If only she had argued as effectively DURING the challenge.
Despite the show’s short tenure thus far, this wasn’t Chittum’s first misstep. Last week, she failed to correctly execute the quickfire challenge. Rather than using actual penny candy in her dish, as was contemplated by the challenge, Chittum created a more sophisticated dish merely ‘inspired’ by penny candy. This misinterpretation landed her in the bottom three in the quickfire challenge. (Chittum’s decision to sport messy, shaggy, falling in her eyes bangs was an equally ill-conceived idea.)
Chittum’s exit was surely viewed as premature by the friends and admirers who, just a few weeks earlier, feted Chittum at a party to celebrate the season premier at Hook. The party featured 18 pastry items billed as the “Best of” Chef Heather Chittum, and included the chocolate whoopie pies with sweet and sticky housemade marshmallow fluff that Chittum planned to make for the Top Chef challenge, as well as playful lobster shaped sugar cookies, decadent individual blueberry pies, moist sage pound cake, addictive cinnamon sugar donuts, silky sweet chocolate caramel tart with maldon sea salt, and a luscious butterscotch pudding (recipe follows). Revelers barely had time to work off the calories consumed that night before Chittum was sent packing.
Chef Heather Chittum’s Butterscotch Pudding
½ cup Dark Brown Sugar
2 Tbsp + 2 tsp Cornstarch
¼ tsp Salt
1 ½ cup Whole Milk
½ cup Heavy Cream
2 Tbsp Butter
1 tsp Vanilla
½ oz Scotch
Combine the brown sugar, corn starch, salt, milk, and heavy cream in a flat bottomed pot. Over medium-high heat, bring the mixture to a rolling boil, stirring constantly. Once the mixture begins to boil, turn down the heat to medium-low and continue to stir for three to five minutes, until the mixture has thickened significantly. Remove the mixture from the heat and strain through a fine mesh sieve. Stir in the butter, vanilla, and scotch. Chill completely before serving.
–LMB
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