Top Moments of Chopped After Hours: Chickens

Chopped judges Aarón, Amanda and Marcus gather in the Chopped kitchen to try their hands at a chicken-themed dessert basket featuring chicken suckers, farm-fresh eggs, fruitcake and chicken fat.

"I've always wanted everyone to bake," Amanda tells Ted, "so I find it only fair for me to bake." After processing the fruitcake with flour to create a cake batter, she bakes the cake on a sheet platter, then sections it into a circle. The challenge for her is dissolving the chicken suckers, as she explains: "These chicken suckers are so weird. I thought they were going to melt like a caramel."

For Aarón, the answer to this odd collection of ingredients is a crepe, something for which he's chastised chefs in the past. His finished offering, unlike other competitors', will be superior in taste. "The problem is that they haven't made good crepes," he explains of the past contestants' plates.

Marcus introduces chocolate as a main ingredient to his dish, a fritter made with melted chocolate and fruitcake, to be served with orange-scented ice cream.

Ultimately following through on his promise to create a prize-winning crepe, Aarón's finished dish, featuring a berry compote with spices, is reminiscent of true comfort food. "It reminds me of such a childhood dessert," Marcus tells him. "You just feel like you're sitting at your mom's table and just enjoying it."

"I want to put my money where my mouth is. I am always begging the chefs to bake ... so I baked," Amanda told her peers of her fruitcake. She served the treat with a mousse featuring white chocolate and marshmallow, and after tasting the composed dish, Aarón announced that the dessert "melts in your mouth."

Achieving not only a just-right flavor in his decadent-looking fruitcake-chocolate fritter but a welcome consistency as well, Marcus' dish garners rave reviews from Aarón, Amanda and Ted. "You guys are always talking about how you don't want your desserts to be excessively sweet, and this is sweet, but it's very dialed back," Ted explains. "I love the crispy crunchiness of the fritter," Amanda notes, adding, "I think what we're always asking the chefs to do is make a harmonious plate. All of those flavors right there make sense and go together."

While all of the judges' dishes are stellar enough to avoid the Chopping Block, Ted doesn't hesitate to tell Aarón of the latter's crepe, "My favorite."