Football is king, but Valerie Bertinelli is queen of the halftime eats! Her family and friends are over to watch the game, so she's making Italian Slow-Cooked Beef Sandwiches served with a Giardiniera Aioli and an Italian-style fennel Cole Slaw. For dessert, she makes Salted Caramel Chocolate Chip Cookies, then turns the leftover halftime snacks into Beef and Potato Hash.
Valerie Bertinelli's friend, Amy Pelkey, is a private chef and caterer who needs inspiration for a few new Italian dishes, so Valerie invites her over so they can cook together! On the menu are Ribollita, Porchetta, Cantaloupe and Radicchio Salad with a reduced balsamic vinaigrette and, for dessert, Lemon Tiramisu. They also mix up a Paper Plane Cocktail featuring Italian liqueurs.
In this single-challenge episode, host Jesse Palmer asks the nine chefs to face off in a decadent dessert showdown that tests their mastery of pastry cream. The bakers are randomly assigned one of three indulgent desserts -- Boston cream pie, coconut cream pie, or Italian rum cake -- and must craft their own interpretation of the classic dessert for presentation to judges Duff Goldman and Shinmin Li.