Line #23 Series/SweetGenius


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/sweet_genius.jpg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:350:H-How did you even ''do'' that?!]]
3	%%
4	->''"I am a Sweet Genius. Are you?"''
5	-->-- '''Chef Ron at the beginning of each episode.'''
6
7	''Sweet Genius'' is a competition show on Creator/FoodNetwork, in the style of ''Series/IronChef'' and ''Series/{{Chopped}}''. Master pastry chef Ron Ben-Israel, an internationally recognized expert on pastries, is the host who presents a challenge to four dessert chefs. The competing chefs get three rounds -- Frozen, Baked and Chocolate (for season 1) or Chocolate, Candy, and Cake (from season 2 on) -- to wow Ben-Israel and show they are truly sweet geniuses. To make the challenge more difficult, they are also presented with a "bewildering" inspiration and two to three unusual mandatory ingredients. The first mandatory ingredient and the inspiration come just before the round starts, ''Series/{{Chopped}}''-style. The 2nd (and 3rd in early seasons) ingredients are then introduced one at a time throughout the prep, forcing the chefs to adjust their dessert on the fly. If they win, they receive Chef Ron's recognition as a sweet genius and $10,000. If they fail... well, they are no sweet genius.
8	----
9	!! This series provides examples of:
10	* AchievementsInIgnorance: Some winners have been primarily self-taught, and have won largely because they didn't cook by the same rules the trained professionals did, resulting in unusually creative desserts.
11	** One chef in the infamous bone marrow challenge decorated her plate with the bone the marrow came in, not realizing Chef Ron has [[BerserkButton a thing]] about inedible decorations. However, the way she used it was creative enough to actually earn his praise, and she won the episode.
12	* BerserkButton: Chef Ron certainly has some notable dislikes and pet peeves:
13	** Too much blue food coloring. Chef Ron has stated that as there are no natural blue foods in existence, blue is just plain artificial, and too much blue food coloring can taste metallic.
14	** American buttercream. It's made with powdered confectioners sugar, which does not dissipate, leaving an unpleasant texture in the cream. In fact, just using powdered confectioners sugar in the creation of any cream or sauce is something he doesn't want anyone to do, because it won't dissolve and will leave that off-putting texture.
15	** Putting inedible things on the plates.
16	** Not doing anything to change, transform or enhance the mandatory ingredients.
17	** Using the microwave oven. He will disqualify a competitor for using it even if it produces an otherwise fine plate of food.
18	** Averted with a chef being unable to plate a mandatory ingredient. While this is a serious offense due to the nature of the challenge, Ron will allow them to go through to the next round if their flavors and creativity manage to surpass at least one of the other competitors' efforts.
19	* BrandX: Certain ingredients get this treatment, like "fruit chews" for "Skittles."
20	* ChefOfIron: One Season One competitor was a career prize fighter who wanted to win so he could start a bakery.
21	* CloudCuckooLander: Chef Ron Ben-Israel is rather kooky and eccentric, but it does not take away from his pastry expertise and great palate.
22	** Season 2 competitor Ashley Betito certainly counted as one, as she'd just up and go off on wild fantasies at any given time. This actually helped her by being inventive, and Chef Ron praised her imaginative approach to desserts.
23	* CookingShow
24	* CordonBleughChef: Mostly averted due to the contestants' expertise in desserts, despite some of the ingredients they must use, like bone marrow.
25	* {{Crossover}}: Ben-Israel appears on a season 4 episode of ''Series/WorstCooksInAmerica''.
26	* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness: The first season had a different set of rounds and a slightly different tone.
27	* EliminationCatchphrase: "In this test, you were no [[TitleDrop Sweet Genius]]."
28	* EpicFail: Some contestants tend to fall into this, whether it be because their confections did not cook/bake/freeze properly, time got away from them, or just for sheer stupidity.
29	** In a season 1 frozen dessert challenge, the inspiration was butterflies, presented as fake butterflies poised on a cage. A chef took his time during the round, and it cost him so badly that he only plated a bit of his ice cream, and decided to actually coat the whisk attachment of the mixer in cream and plate it to "represent the butterfly cage". Needless to say, Chef Ron declared his dish a disaster and eliminated him.
30	** In another season 1 frozen dessert round, a contestant decided to bake a pie and just put it in the fridge for a couple of minutes, thinking this counted as "frozen". The real doozy comes with dealing with the inspiration, a bonsai tree. Not knowing how to use it as inspiration for his dish, he decides to just chop off parts of it and place them on top of his pie. Not only did Chef Ron declare his dish a disaster, he was quite upset at the chef's disrespect for the people who've worked on the bonsai tree for so long.
31	** One chef in the first season made a microwave-baked cake for the Baked round. Chef Ron was ''not'' happy. Especially since it was underdone in the middle.
32	** In a season 2 episode, the candy round proves to be this for two of the three remaining competitors, when both of them fail to plate one of the mandatory ingredients and don't display the inspiration in any way. Chef Ron voices out his disappointment quite openly before moving on to the third chef (who made an almost flawless dish).
33	*** Out of the two competitors, the female chef's fail was far more epic. When her confections did not come out as she intended, she decided to continue with her initial plan to make s'mores. The problem was that instead of starting over or doing something different, she decided to use already prepared graham crackers and marshmallows from the pantry, chocolate from the tempering machine, and one of the mandatory ingredients just smeared on the crackers, while the other mandatory ingredient was set aside and never used. Chef Ron rightfully called her out on everything on her plate being made of already prepared ingredients, thus she technically created nothing.
34	** During the chocolate round in a season 1 episode, one of the mandatory ingredients ends up being Peking duck. One of the competitors is thrilled, as she enjoys using savory ingredients, and proceeds to make a tart using the Peking duck, a dough she prepared, and a bit of chocolate ganache inside. And as Chef Ron tastes it, she pretty much admits that her tart is meant to be an appetizer or entree and not a dessert. Ron declares the tart to be delicious and innovative, but by the chef's own admission, it was not a dessert, which is what should be served in a competition that focuses on desserts. Needless to say, she lost that episode.
35	* FoodPorn
36	* GeniusSweetTooth: Ron Ben-Israel certainly acts as if this is the case, and some contestants agree that he is a genius in the pastry world.
37	* HammerspaceHideaway: Let's face it. Some of the inspiration objects are ''not'' coming out from that conveyor belt entrance.
38	* ImpossiblyDeliciousFood: One of the ingredients in a (final) chocolate round was bone marrow, and Ben-Israel liked both desserts created using it, so much that he had trouble choosing who to eliminate.
39	** Also happens when chefs are given a mandatory ingredient that is either gross or is just not used for desserts, and they can make it work and make it delicious. One chef managed to make a dessert that Chef Ron declared flawless, and it had lobster in it.
40	* InformedAbility: Chef Ron is a very accomplished cake artist who has appeared on numerous shows and programs, but none of that was actually mentioned during Season 1 of the show, which left viewers somewhat confused as to why the contestants idolized him so much. Averted during Season 2 with the new opening.
41	* JerkAss: The one chef who chopped off a bonsai tree used as inspiration to put the little branches on top of his dessert. Not taking into account how monumentally stupid this was (namely that the little branches are inedible), when Chef Ron calls him out on disrespecting the people who've put so many years of dedication to the bonsai tree, the guy sees absolutely nothing wrong with what he did and is completely indifferent about it.
42	** A female chef in a season 1 episode, who spent a good chunk of the episode bashing the other female contestant and her desserts, the focus of her bashing being the other contestant's simpler approach to desserts. As mentioned above in the epic fail trope, Ms. Jerkass's penchant for using savory ingredients backfired on her in the final round, helping ensure the victory of the chef she spent a good chunk of the episode bashing.
43	* LethalChef: Narrowly averted in one episode. The chef used ''raw eggs'' to bind rice crispies. Chef Ron rightfully called him out for using raw eggs because of basic food safety violations.
44	* MrFanservice: A season 3 episode features strong, muscular firefighters as inspiration for the chocolate dessert, and the two female contestants made no secret of how attracted they were to the firefighters.
45	* NegatedMomentOfAwesome: In a season 2 episode, Rubik's Cube was the inspiration for a candy test. One chef proceeded to make an ''exact replica'' of the cube using Isomalt and fruit-flavored candies. She finished the round with a completed Rubik's Cube, but on the transition to Ron's table, the cube falls, breaking the whole candy. Worse, Chef Ron said that isomalt does not melt like sugar does, thus making her dessert so hard and difficult to eat that it was pretty much inedible.
46	* OhCrap: A frequent reaction to an unexpected mandatory ingredient.
47	* OneNoteChef: In the first season, Chef Ron was likely to reject a chef who made chocolate cake for both the Baked and Chocolate rounds, even if they did different styles of chocolate cake.
48	* OutsideContextProblem: Many a contestant is tripped up by a mandatory ingredient or inspiration that is simply so far outside their experience, expertise, and/or culture that they have ''no clue'' what it is or how to work with it.
49	* PreciousPuppy: The inspiration for the chocolate test in the first episode of the third season are a trio of adorable Pug puppies.
50	* PregnantBadass: A contestant in a season 3 episode was a pregnant woman, and she won the episode she competed in.
51	* RealityShow
52	* RealMenWearPink: ... and frost cupcakes!
53	* SchmuckBait: Prepared ingredients in the pantry, such as pastry dough or whipped cream. Using them as-is can earn the contestant a strong tongue lashing for failing to produce anything of their own.
54	* TechnicianVersusPerformer: Happened a few times in the final rounds.
55	** Chef Ron seems to favor creativity to technique... but not by much. A good example of this is season 2 contestant Ashley Betito. Ron loved her creativity, but a few technical flaws in the second and third round cost her the victory.
56	* TookALevelInKindness: In season 1, Chef Ron wasn't exactly a jerk, but he was very serious, strict and down-to-business. Starting with season 2, he's become more relaxed, more detailed with his judging, and is clearly having a lot of fun and enjoying himself, also wanting the chefs to enjoy the experience and have fun too.
57	* TheVoice: Was certainly the case for providing information about food and inspiration in season 1. For Season 2, this was removed in favor of Ron providing information about the mandatory ingredient and the inspiration, as well as doing commentary.
58	* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: A season 2 episode has an albino python as inspiration for the chocolate test. Two chefs were terrified of it, and while one hid it well, the other one was extremely nervous throughout the whole round and later stated that her phobia of snakes came from having been bitten by a rattlesnake before.
59	** In another season 2 episode, one of the inspirations was a ventriloquist dummy, and one of the contestant mentions having been terrified of them since he was little.
60	** A season 3 episode had a cute clown girl as inspiration, and of course, one of the chefs was AfraidOfClowns.

Context Series / SweetGenius