>> I'm going to make the best dessert ever.

>> The colors are amazing.

>> Intensely sweet sugar bomb.

>> I never tasted anything like it before.

Much more intense than honey.

>> Thick dulce de leche.

>> Mm... beautiful.

>> It's perfect.

>> Texture is so good.

>> Very tasty.

>> That's what I'm talking about.

>> It's super sexy.

(overlapping dialogue) >> Strawberries are my favorite.

>> This is the best thing you'll ever eat.

>> A whole snake head.

>> It cures any hangover any time.

>> Whoo!

(sniffs) >> This is sorghum that's been aged in a bourbon barrel for one year.

It's picked up a little bit of that bourbon note.

I really just wanted a dish that was clean, and it was just sorghum.

There wasn't a lot of recipes out there.

Sorghum hadn't had its renaissance yet.

Because I didn't find a lot of recipes about sorghum, I was, like, it's kind of an open game.

I can do whatever I want because you guys didn't do anything with it.

To me that's probably the most fun part of my life is when I have something new and I'm trying to figure out what to make out of it.

I don't know what's going to happen to it.

(whirring) Beautiful.

The ice cream's pretty much done.

This is basically just cooked grits, but the texture of the ice cream becomes gritty.

Make sure it spreads everywhere.

Going to put the top on and let it go for another about ten minutes.

(whirring stops) It's always still a little bit loose because of all the friction.

So I'm just going to stiffen it up in the freezer for about an hour or so.

It's good, it's good.

Got blackberries, raspberries, blueberries.

A little bit of thyme as well.

Put it there.

Yeah, that looks good.

It's like coconut cake just crumbled and dried out a little bit.

Coffee.

And last but not least, a little croissant, and that is it.

Sorghum and grits ice cream.

♪ ♪ >> Do you think the strawberries taste different at the beginning of the season and at the end of the season?

>> The beginning they're sweeter.

>> Yeah.

>> And towards the end they get a little back flavor.

For this dish, they're more of the focus.

Strawberry jam with some sesame paste instead of peanut butter.

>> Looks like peanut butter.

It reminds you of peanut butter, but you know it's not peanut butter.

>> Yeah, but you know it's not.

>> Yeah.

>> We make sesame cream.

We toast sesame seeds super hard, and infuse it overnight.

A little bit of bitterness, too.

And so when you add the white chocolate, it rounds the whole thing out.

Take an ice cream scoop and we cast these individual ring molds.

And then we take this sesame cake and insert it into the sesame paste.

>> So it's sesame-sesame-- sesame-squared.

(laughs) Is there a top and a bottom on this?

>> This is the top, and I usually just drop it, and then you set it in like this.

>> I can do that.

>> You can do that?

>> I can do that.

So in other words, this is going to be the bottom of the dessert.

>> This is the bottom of the dessert.

>> I need to center this so that when you flip it out, people will not see the cake.

>> You don't see the cake.

>> Got it.

>> Yeah.

>> I can do that.

How's that?

>> That looks great.

>> What's next?

>> It's strawberries with 50% weight sugar.

We're going to cover it with plastic wrap to create isolated environment.

>> So no liquid.

>> It starts out dry, and then with the heat and the steam, all the juices are going to get released.

Next we're doing another strawberry layer with freeze-dried strawberries.

>> They're light, almost like a marshmallow.

>> We have this almond crumb, and I add the strawberries until I get the color that I want.

(machine whirring) >> It's like a rosé.

>> Yeah.

>> So that's why the freeze-dried works so well is because there's no moisture content in here, and it's not going to clump it up.

I know that you like not uniform.

>> No uniform.

Abstract cuts and different shapes.

Dress the strawberries, just like dressing a salad.

>> It's almost like cherry cough syrup.

That's so fragrant.

>> Strawberries that are tossed in strawberry syrup.

That really highlights what the strawberry is.

>> An amplification of an exceptional product.

>> So we start out with the mousse.

Some strawberry gel.

Strawberries that were tossed in the syrup.

This strawberry crumb baked element.

This is nasturtium oil.

It gives the dish this herbal element to it that's really nice.

Little sesame cookies.

And then just to tie everything in together, we have the burnt honey ice cream.

>> It's beautiful.

(ice crackling) >> So this is like sheets of ice that has frozen on top of snow melt that is in itself floating over the actual ice of the pond.

And I kind of really like these textures.

Even the sound they make like when you handle them.

And I'm kind of thinking that this could be a really, really very nice dessert.

I always remembered as a kid I liked to eat icicles hanging off the roofs.

And I kind of think that this would be sort of the same sensation, that sort of feeling of ice crushing against ice in the mouth.

Which you don't really find in food in general because most frozen things in the kitchen would be soft like ice cream or sorbet and stuff like that.

Very rarely hard and crunchy.

The most difficult part is going to be to fake these very special circumstances that you have out here with the layer of almost subzero temperature water and a little sheet of ice freezing on top of that, that we can lift off.

My idea for this dish was I wanted to have something that contrasts that very special crunchiness of the ice in a good way.

And I asked you like a couple months ago now to start working with yogurt.

You want to tell me a bit what you've been working with?

>> What I've been trying is the amount of time where you heat the yogurt.

The longer you heat it, the harder and more sour it's going to get.

>> Okay, so firmer.

>> Yeah, firmer, and more grainy.

>> The texture is so good.

To have that kind of fatty creaminess first sit on your tongue.

Followed by the yogurt kind of breaking up into little pieces, releasing all of that very refreshing whey.

It's super delicious.

>> And it's still fermenting, but not like a closed flavor.

>> You can feel that there's stuff happening there.

I think this is very, very good.

We're going to try the ice on the still lukewarm fermenting yogurt with these like really nice fresh little summer cucumbers.

And just pass them through the centrifuge and get a little cucumber juice.

It smells so good in here now.

Like it smells all like green and summery, right?

I think that's going to be very delicious.

Should we bring the ice out perhaps?

I think this looks pretty good.

It looks almost like natural lake ice, right?

>> Yeah, and it feels like it's going to hold and keep quite good.

>> I think it will, you know.

I think it will.

Pretty big pieces of ice, I think should be...

I like this whole layering of the ice.

It looks kind of like a little ice salad.

And we'll kind of just season the ice with a little bit of the cucumber juice.

Because this is just water, this ice.

And like a few little drops of vinegar, perhaps.

Shall we taste?

>> Oh, yes.

>> The idea is that you have a little bit of the extra creamy yogurt, and a little bit of the crunchy ice, and you kind of bite through the thing.

>> It's really nice.

And the acid in the yogurt is settling down, like a lot.

>> Definitely, it's definitely balanced now.

(laughing): I think it's a good start, because like the main problem with this now is that you and I had one bite each.

It kind of looks like vomit.

>> Yeah.

>> We'll have to get the yogurt to stay more firmly to the bottom.

And the second thing is to try to find a way that produces the yogurt kind of like tofu, you know?

Imagine like tofu splits.

>> More solid piece.

>> Yeah, kind of silky.

And the ice, I'm very happy with the ice, actually.

I think that worked really well.

This is definitely going to make the menu.

I would like to get it on quickly now when we still have the kind of early summer cucumbers.

We do a few more tries with the firmer yogurt, and then we'll see to that we get it going.

We just have to figure out how we're going to plate it for 16 without the ice melting.

(chuckling) >> This is the saga of the return of the legendary melon.

The Bradford watermelon.

There's a problem with watermelons.

A watermelon will cross with any gourd, cucumber, pumpkin, other melon, or squash in the vicinity.

So you have to keep it a mile apart from any other vegetable, or else it will form vegetable mongrels.

One of the things that became the concern was to somehow impose a discipline on the watermelon.

The beginning of the 19th century, the breeders appeared.

They created ancestral melons for all the melons we eat now.

There was Carolina Sweet, the Mountain Sweet, and a Lawson watermelon.

There was apparently a Georgia military officer, his name was Lawson.

He gets captured, stuck on a prison ship in the West Indies.

A nice Scottish captain gives him a slice of watermelon, he saves the seeds, brings them back to Georgia, he grows them, and it becomes the sweetest, most wonderful tasting watermelon that anyone has ever encountered.

He kept it absolutely isolated from any other melon, and he only allowed seeds in the hands of two other people.

One of them was Nathaniel Bradford.

The other one we don't know the name of, but he created the Rattlesnake watermelon.

But the Bradford melon was the one that everyone wanted.

If you had a Bradford watermelon, you took measures to defend it.

You had people with guns standing out by watermelon patches, and you had young men forming watermelon clubs whose sole intent was to pillage those watermelons.

So the defenders poisoned certain unmarked melons in their field and posted a notice: "Pick at your own risk."

Now unfortunately, sometimes the poisoners forgot which melons were marked, and it was not at all unusual to read newspaper stories of entire families being poisoned by watermelon that they had themselves poisoned.

Finally when America became electrified in the 1880s, the wired melon became popular.

If you were going out and trying to pick it, all of a sudden the lightning zap would stop you in your tracks.

There were more people killed in watermelon patches than in any other part of the agricultural landscape of America-- with the exception of those people who were cattle rustlers or engaged in horse stealing.

The watermelon became fatal, and the Bradford watermelon was one of the reasons why.

♪ ♪ >> I'm going to make the best dessert ever.

It's a banoffee pie.

It's said to have originated in the Hungry Monk in East Sussex in about 1972.

This is basically just a sweet crust dough.

And what I do is I grate it so I don't have to overwork the pastry.

And it's kind of nice because it's kind of housewifey, and I kind of like that.

So you can see I'm just kind of pushing it against the sides.

I always start with the sides, and then I do the base.

If you're in London-- or actually any part of England-- you'll probably find this at every pub.

It's like one of those gastropub classics.

So I'm going to chill that down because you don't want it to shrink.

Okay.

This one looks a little tidier than my last one.

Okay, so it's chilled.

I'm going to put it in the oven, and I'll just cook it until it goes nice and golden brown.

Probably take like 15 minutes.

My oven is at like 350.

Okay, so this is the best thing I think you'll ever eat.

It's like the most simple thing.

Condensed milk, sweetened.

You cook it in boiling water for about five hours.

And you just keep topping up the water because you don't really want to let it boil dry.

And after about five hours, you let it cool, and you end up with this thick dulce de leche, which is like a thick toffee.

It's super sexy.

We're going to use it for this tart.

And I think this complements the banana and the cream and the chocolate really well.

So this is nice, you know, we've got some good color right here.

And I'm going to let it chill.

This is a cold dessert, and the colder the better, so I'm going to just pop it in the fridge and just make sure it's all super delicious.

You don't have to be too, you know, too precise about the bananas.

So this is the fun bit for me, because you get to slather all this all over these bananas.

I mean just look at that.

Look, look, watch.

Look at those little... so beautiful.

(sighs) I don't know whoever thought of boiling condensed milk to come up with something like this.

I mean it's genius.

Maybe they just dropped, like, you know, a tin of this in some boiling soup one day and was like... (laughing): They forgot it was there or something.

Okay, so I'm going to start my cream.

And then we're going to do a little bit of vanilla.

So look how nice and sticky these are, you know.

They're all nice and moist.

So we're just going to scrape that out.

Okay.

Should be nice and thick.

Not too runny.

And I just like to kind of spread it here and there, you know.

So you can see everything.

So we're going to chill this for about, I don't know, you could do it overnight, but the longer the better.

Minimum probably like an hour.

So I've got some milk chocolate, dark chocolate, whatever your preference is, you know.

And I'm just going to kind of grate that on.

So I'm going to chill this baby.

(sighs) Patience, you know.

Hour later.

This looks great, I'm going to give it a little slice.

You know, cooking's all about senses, you know.

It's the smells, the sounds, you know, the tastes.

Look at that.

So exciting.

♪ ♪ >> Magnus, can you remember when you used to work at the restaurant, we try some different tests with rhubarb?

>> We cut it lengthwise and it was almost like glass.

>> Can you smell this one?

>> Yeah.

>> I soak the rhubarb stick in sugar for one night.

>> Ah!

>> The sugar begin to cook it, to burn it.

When this is the beginning of the season, the colors are amazing.

Beautiful pink.

>> The skin is going to be so soft now because it was cooking.

I like that.

This was one of the first techniques that we developed together.

>> Yeah.

>> I remember exactly when you gave me the instructions from day one that I was going to look at it as if you were cooking the product for a main course.

>> Exactly.

>> That is often the case with desserts.

People tend to not look at them as they should.

It's just desserts.

You don't put the same effort into cooking the main product, it's... >> I don't always to blend, to mix.

This is something that's very important for me.

(birds chirping) Oh, here, cool!

>> They're perfect, huh?

>> I'm going to use it.

>> It would go very well with the rhubarb.

(laughing) >> Yeah.

>> You want some of the ones that haven't flowered yet as well?

>> No, because it's toxic.

We need to pickle it before to use it.

>> Oh yeah, really?

I use them fresh.

>> No.

(laughing) If you eat a lot, if you eat... >> No one has died yet from eating mine, so that's good to know.

>> Hmm, that's nice!

>> Yeah, beautiful.

>> Two will be enough.

The goal of my dessert is only white flowers.

So acacia, sureau, elderflowers, and jasmine.

>> That's going to be fantastic.

>> Yes.

So I have rhubarb juice.

It smells nice, huh?

>> Rhubarb and elderflower is a pretty nice combination.

>> Pretty sure, yes.

Okay, I'm going to infuse the elderflowers in rhubarb syrup.

I want it very concentrated.

In France we have the culture of the pâtisserie.

This is so important for us.

So we need something creamy and butter, very tasty.

So here I bring some tarte au sucre.

This is a dough-- cream and sugar, very French.

Huile de sureau.

Just infuse some elderflowers in oil.

Very creamy.

And here I'm going to make the tart.

So this is pâte à cigarette, très épurée-- very pure.

>> Very neat, huh?

>> Yes, yes, yes.

All the same size, so very easy to cook it.

I'm going to cook it for seven, eight minutes.

This is very, very ripe.

>> Very nice and perfumed.

>> I'm keeping it fresh, I don't want to cook it.

Rhubarb.

Fresh strawberries.

I love always fresh fruits in desserts.

>> Yes.

>> Right on time.

It's perfect!

This is something you will like to do because it's very Swedish.

Straight, clean.

>> (laughing): Yes.

>> Very precise.

>> The way we do it in the north.

>> (laughing): Yes.

>> I think that was good for me, though, to work in France for a while.

You get a little bit more spontaneity.

>> Yes, and a bit of craziness.

You have to be crazy in the kitchen.

>> I think I was already crazy.

That's a pre-existing condition.

>> This is jasmine Chantilly.

>> Nice and light.

>> Yes.

So had some jasmine inside.

>> Yup.

♪ ♪ Beautiful.

Didn't know that.

>> Yes.

This is it.

The right balance, it's the most important.

Too rich, not enough rich.

Too creamy, not enough creamy.

Some fruit, acidity, sugar.

This is the difficulty of a dessert.

>> This is the kind of desserts and the kind of dishes that I remember from when I used to work with you.

Perfect balance and the, like, very nice and neat execution.

>> Easy to understand.

>> Yeah, you just have to eat it, you understand.

>> That's it.

(chuckling) (sniffs)