[theme music playing]
Congratulations. You made it to the very end.
The finale, the showdown,
the bitter slash sweet end of your snack-tastic journey.
Sandy, Lauryn B, today is a very big day,
which should be obvious since I'm wearing a pocket square.
[chuckling]
It's been a long and difficult yet delicious road, but you proved yourselves.
You've separated the cookie from the cream,
the Kit from the Kat,
the Ho from the... other Ho.
[chuckling]
[Hari] And you two have emerged,
slathered in victory.
Well, close to victory.
There's still one last challenge afoot.
That's right. One of you will enter the kitchen today
a mere snack-making mortal
and exit a snack deity.
In today's challenge, you'll be taking us to the future of snacks.
You'll be creating the next big thing.
Wow.
I think you two are going to enjoy today.
This is the first time it's not about mimicking somebody else's magic sauce.
It's about creating your own.
We want you two
to take everything you learned throughout this competition
and use it to hone in on your own magical element in your last snack.
In other words, you're free to create whatever type of snack you want.
You wanna think about balancing new with familiar,
and ultimately creating an amazing snack
in concept and execution that makes you wonder how you ever lived without it.
We are so excited to see what you're going to come up with today.
-[whispering] Me too. -Me too.
And we thought for this last challenge, you might actually want a bit of support.
[Lauryn, chuckling] Mmm!
[contestants] Hello.
-Congrats. -Congratulations.
Hi, congratulations.
Your old pals/enemies are back to cheer you on/wish for your demise.
Okay, everybody. It is now time to get this thing started.
You have four hours to craft the ultimate snack of the future.
And your time starts...
[suspenseful music builds]
...now.
[contestants cheering]
Aah!
Oh my God, it's the finale.
-I have a swim class after this, so... -[Hari] Ooh.
Gotta wrap it up soon, so... I don't want to miss it, again.
[chuckles]
[Lauryn] This is it.
I just want to really make not only the judges proud,
but myself proud to finish this out.
[Francis] What is she doing?
I am making, um, a pasta snack.
I love pasta. I always want to snack on pasta.
And now I, like, really can.
So for my snack, I'm making cavatelli amatriciana in snack-sized form.
I'm going to make these cavatelli-shaped pasta,
and it's going to be coated in an amatriciana powdery sauce.
Amatriciana is just like this classic red sauce.
It has a little bit of basil, some red onion.
Oregano. Some garlic.
I want to roast some bacon and tomatoes and onion.
Then I want to pull the oils out of it
to mix with maltodextrin tapioca to make a "sauce" powder.
I'm trying to pull in those real components
to make it as authentic an amatriciana as possible.
Buckle up.
[cheering]
A lot of green stuff on Sandy's station. Looks really healthy.
[Sandy] Of course I want to win.
I'm going to bring it as best I can.
If I can put out the exact thing that I want in a snack for the future
that's innovative in the way I want it to be,
for me, that's a win.
[dynamic music playing]
I'm a big believer in sustainability and upcycling and eliminating waste.
I saw that a lot of juiceries would throw out tons of pulp after juicing.
And I came up with ideas to kind of use those pulps in, like, creative ways.
I decided I'm gonna basically re-fabricate this pulp
into toppings for my snack.
I am making chips and popcorn. [chuckles]
For my popcorn, I'm gonna flavor it with maple, ginger, and roasted carrot.
For my chips, I'm doing a green chip.
So it's going to be a potato chip with kale, Swiss chard,
spinach and green apple seasoning.
There's a lot I have to do to get this going because
I have to make pulp.
I basically juice six different things very quickly.
The popcorn and chips are just the vehicle for this and they're late in the cook.
So my whole cook is setting up seasoning. I gotta get this pulp out.
Then I gotta throw this stuff into the dehydrator.
Then the dehydrator is gonna basically blow-dry all these nice fibers down,
then I'll pulse it in the food processor and make this gorgeous powder.
This is very nice and dry.
So, for the last time, what is the most challenging part
of this finale for our two contestants?
I think the time concerns me in a new way.
Four hours is enough time to have a concise vision
and be able to fully execute it,
but ultimately, it's enough time to get into deeper trouble.
It's not anywhere near enough time to ferment a pickle.
-Oh. I see what you're saying. -Really? Yeah.
You got this!
I'm definitely excited to taste these two great competitors' snacks.
I'm very excited to see their snack point of view.
They've got a really great journey.
And Sandy's flavor profile is really something.
But Lauryn is surprising.
You don't know what she has up her sleeve and I think she's underestimated.
So it'll be interesting to see what they create.
I saw bacon earlier. Like, bacon is always amazing.
Sandy's juicing lots of, like, ginger.
Love those flavor profiles.
[chuckling] Making snacks is a lot harder than it looks.
There's more chemistry in it than I realize.
And the key to a good snack is everything's got to be over-the-top.
[loud whirring]
That sounds terrifying.
Sandy, he has this, like, magic guru, genius mind.
He can think of things and components in a way that I can't.
I feel he always gets misjudged
in terms of his concepts and then he knocks them out.
-Sandy. -Yeah?
-Are you going to make me a juice? -Yeah.
-Which one? -What about carrot ginger?
Okay. It's really gingery, though. It's half carrot, half ginger.
I need it. Immunity boost.
-I'm terrified to drink it now. -Holy shit.
Ugh!
[Sandy laughs]
-Oh my God. -[Sandy] It's really gingery.
That was sharp.
Lauryn, she's definitely gonna bring it. She doesn't back down, she's competitive.
She's really good with her ideas and she's just so consistent.
I feel like she could make anything.
I know we're both gonna put our best dish forward.
All right, Sandy's got an hour of juicing.
-An hour of juicing. -I know.
Okay, I'm okay. Calm down, Sandy.
Sandy appears to be making something incredibly healthy.
Is that a mistake?
[Ali] Health is not a bad thing.
-There's a whole spectrum in between. -Yeah.
It doesn't have to be, like, kale chip, Brussels sprout thing.
-Right. -[Ali] Or beef jerky.
You can have something that meets in the middle,
which is one of the most interesting, uncharted territories in snacks.
What would you do if someone just made a big pizza, not a snack?
Talk about failure with my mouth full of pizza.
[Lauryn] I'm starting on the pasta dough.
While I'm waiting for all the sauce bits to come together.
So I'm putting in some potato flour,
some cornmeal, a little bit of baking powder, salt, water, oil.
I just want it to pull together into a nice dough.
I don't want it to be too dry or too wet.
I'm a little worried about the texture.
The dough feels kind of crumbly.
Just trying to hydrate it.
-[Ali] Hey, Lauryn B! -Hi.
-Happy finale. -Thank you.
What are you making?
I'm doing a cavatelli tossed in an amatriciana powder.
-Are you actually making pasta? -I am.
I am very hopeful for this,
because this is an idea I want. I know you want it.
-Oh, I'm so excited already. -Yeah.
I already wonder why I live without it.
What is it you're most worried about?
Probably making sure that the sauce comes around right,
getting the proportions right on everything.
-We'll let you get to it. -Thank you.
Bye.
♪ Into the dehydrator we go ♪
When you dehydrate something, it loses a lot of the sharpness.
The dehydrated powder will be very aromatic,
but I still want the stronger flavors in there.
So I'm doing two-steps process on this.
Not only am I using the pulp to make fresh powder,
I'm also gonna cook veg in oil really low and slow.
That way, the oil can infuse with each individual flavor of the vegetables.
Infuse an oil that is now a powder will be kind of like the rich tones
for the popcorn and the chip.
So, for my chips, Swiss chard, kale, spinach, and green apple.
And for my popcorn, carrot, ginger.
Once it kind of softens, you literally blend it with a hand mixer.
Then I'm gonna take that oil and mix it with the maltodextrin,
turn it into a powder and use that as the base coat for my chips and popcorn.
-Hey, Sandy. -Oh, hey, guys.
[Ali] We're really excited.
So, we were saying, both you and Lauryn B should be very proud
of where you've come from day one.
It's been educational and eye-opening.
It's amazing what you've become in such a short amount of time.
-[Helen] Yes. -What are you making?
So I actually went to one of those famous juice spots.
I saw they were throwing out hundreds of pounds of pulp every day.
-Yeah. -And I started getting into upcycling,
so I'm making a green chip and a carrot ginger popcorn.
Oh.
[Sandy] For me, that's the innovation in future snacks,
finding ways where you see waste and using that in some sustainable way.
I'm trying to show that we can make these really awesome seasonings,
but in a way that's more conscious of where you're getting your stuff from.
Yeah.
Popcorn and chip, are they gonna be together in a bag?
No, no, they're two separate bags.
-I'm showing you two versions. -Two. Got it.
Yeah, and I'm excited more about the popcorn, I think.
The more you show us, the more you're judged. So just show the best.
[Sandy, laughing] Okay.
I mean, we'll taste them all, but like, you know, don't bring it all on.
Understood. Okay.
-Thanks, Sandy. -I will try. Thanks, guys.
You have two and a half hours left in this round.
[funky music playing]
Is it safer to go with sweet or savory? Or is that irrelevant for this?
Both are minefields.
-Okay. -[Ali] Yeah.
Savory has its issues. Sweet has its issues.
I'd be most concerned about somebody going outside their comfort zone
on, like, the fundamental turf.
Yeah.
If you feel most comfortable in savory, take risks, but do it in savory.
Now I want to form my pasta nuggets.
I hope I get in a groove so I can get these done.
They're usually a bit thinner.
They're not these fat little balls.
In that sense, they kind of look like little gnocchi.
I wish I had a machine right now. I wish I was a machine.
I am so happy it's done. Now let's just dry them out.
I really want to pull out excess moisture to make it crunchy as you bite into it.
Bacon-y, tomatoey flavor is a huge part of the amatriciana.
I'm gonna grind this.
[whirring]
I want it to be noticeable, but bacon can be very overpowering.
I don't want it to be a bacon sauce.
I want it to be a tomato sauce with bacon notes.
So I'm gonna make this, like, super dry by using the dehydrator.
I should've made popcorn.
[upbeat music playing]
-One and a half hours left, chefs. -Okay.
-[cheering] -Yo!
-That time, though, goes fast. -Oh, for real. 100%
I wish the normal work day was like that.
[Sandy] I'm making maple sugar for the popcorn.
It's gonna be a carrot ginger maple.
So you just boil this up to 262.
When it hits that, take it off the heat, stir it, it turns into sugar. It's crazy.
I'm gonna do the oil
and maltodextrin powder first as a base layer.
Then I'm gonna do the dehydrated powder in this sugar after.
Sandy seasonings.
It's just straight maple.
You just do it to a hard-ball stage, then you gotta mix it as it cools down.
It turns into this.
Science.
[chuckles]
You go, girl.
-Let's go, Lauryn. -Let's go, Lauryn.
I'll pulse it together and pull the oils out of it
to then make sauce powder.
[whirring]
I really want it to be vibrant.
I'm trying to pull in as much flavor as I can.
I'm adding tapioca maltodextrin.
It should pick up all that oil and become a powder.
It's not really coming together.
[tense music playing]
I think I pulled too much moisture from the tomatoes,
that it's not reacting with the tapioca how I want to.
I just decide to pivot my plan.
[Lauren] She's looking really stressed out.
-[Ali] Something went wrong. -[Lauren] Oh.
When this is not working, it seems very on brand.
It's not the way I wanted to do this.
I really, like, wanted to prove that I could go a certain way.
But I know there's other things I can use to make the sauce.
I grabbed some sun-dried tomatoes, mixed it with tomato powder.
Sun-dried tomatoes have a lot of oil on them,
and I'm making a powder from that.
They're pretty fragrant, so it's... Smells good. Smells like a sauce.
[catchy music playing]
Wow, that actually worked.
They made a pretty pungent powder.
I have bacon crumbles in the dehydrator that I'll finish it with.
[rhythmic music plays]
The Swiss chard did not dry well at all.
My time's kind of running out.
While some of the greens are done, some of them are just too wet.
I don't want to use one green on the green chip.
Plus, it's not enough green to carry through all the chips.
I decided to scrap it and go with carrot ginger popcorn instead.
So the chip is not working and I have little Helen in the back of my mind.
And she's like...
[echoing] The more you show us, the more you're judged. So just show the best.
You're right, Helen. It's not the best and you don't want this.
So, I toss it.
But, nevertheless, I'm more concerned now because
I don't know how this popcorn is gonna land with the judges.
That's carroty.
I'm using a cheesecloth to extract oil from the carrots.
Now I'm turning it into a powder.
There we go.
Stabilize!
Carrot, carrot, carrot.
Oh my God, I love you.
You have 45 minutes left.
[Lauryn] These are the bacon bits that I ground.
They smell super smoky and bacon-y.
So, I'm gonna add this to my sauce mixture.
Looks like Lauryn B's getting ready to fry some stuff.
I'm just frying off my pasta nuggets now,
and then I'm going to toss them in seasoning.
So she's frying the pasta, that the idea?
She's baking them to set the shape and then frying them to puff them up.
It also removes any leftover moisture that could be in there.
By frying the pasta, I want to get, like, a nice, crispy exterior
and really puff up the inside of the dough.
As pasta comes out of the fryer,
I toss it in seasoning immediately because that helps it cling.
They look good.
[intense music playing]
Twenty minutes left, chefs!
[contestants cheering]
-[Hari] Yes, girl. -[Clara] Yeah!
[cheering]
Carrot and ginger come out the dehydrator. I have to turn this into a powder mix.
I'm really happy with it. It's got a nice orange color
and it adds, like, all the aromatics.
I'm getting my nuggies a little final coating.
I really want the sauce to, like, get in all those crevices.
You can smell the bacon for sure.
Which is nice.
Five minutes left, chefs.
[Sandy] I've come a long way to this point,
and there's a chance for me to get a bit of a soap box, if you will.
Some of the things I'm passionate about, the things that I want to do,
require me to have more visibility.
So that I can build, like, a brand for my sustainability, my nonprofits.
So I have to win this thing.
We are so close to that $50,000, I feel like I can touch it.
This is the most intense pressure that I have felt in my life.
-[Sandy] Seasoning. -One minute!
-[cheering] -You almost got it done.
[Lauryn] Just coating. Coating.
-[cheering] -[moaning]
[contestants] Five, four, three, two, one.
-And that's time! -[horn honks]
I'm done!
-[applause] -[Clara] Yeah!
[cheering]
For one final time,
head to the checkout line for your final judgment.
-[Hari] Sandy and Lauryn! Hip, hip! -[all] Hooray!
Thank you.
[Ali] Thank you.
-Okay. -[Helen] Thank you.
Lauryn B, please tell us about your snack.
So, my favorite snack is a bowl of pasta.
But most people don't constitute that as a snack.
So I wanted to really put it out there for people to explore.
It's pasta amatriciana, a really classic Italian sauce.
It's tomato notes,
guanciale notes, lots of herbs, basil, garlic, all that goodness.
It's a bowl of pasta on the go.
I really love the concept. Super-super much.
I love that you incorporated cooked flavors.
I love that it tastes like such a long simmered tomato flavor.
-There's bacon in it, right? -Yes.
One of the things that I am waiting for as a revolution in snacks
is for people to realize it's okay to have a bit of animal product.
Like, not everything needs to be either a Slim Jim or...
-Dehydrated leaves. -Dehydrated leaves. [chuckles]
Like, some people just eat a bit of meat or a little bit of kind of animal product.
I think this is a great idea where it's not "death by pork belly."
But so much of the crave-ability
and deep savoriness that I miss from a lot of purely plant-based products
is imbued into here in a way that doesn't require me to be chewing slabs of protein.
I really like that. Like, give me cooked flavors.
-[Lauryn chuckles] -I think all of that was accomplished.
[Helen] I love that you have the ridges in there to catch sauce
the way these are catching seasoning.
I love that it's almost hollow.
I like it too.
And the exterior texture is incredible.
It's really, really cool. And there's all these crispy bits.
I was kind of nervous when I first saw it that it might be too hard.
-[Lauryn] Yeah. -Like, tooth-crackingly crunchy.
And I kind of would like something maybe thinner.
[Lauryn] Okay.
Just because I'm afraid of like, teeth cracking,
but I do like that it'd be definitely sort of transport-safe.
I think you've created something addictive and snack-y I don't know I've seen before.
You're bringing people comfort food in portable ways,
and I really love that about your cooking.
Thank you. That's really nice to hear.
Thank you for sharing this.
-Thank you. -[Ali] Thanks, Lauryn.
Thanks, guys.
[clapping and cheering]
Hey!
[Sandy] Hello, guys.
-Hello. -Ahoy.
Thank you.
[Megan] Thank you.
Sandy, my dude. Tell me what this is.
This is raw material.
This is a popcorn seasoned with all upcycled ingredients.
It is all sustainable.
The purpose of this popcorn is to showcase
a new way of seasoning
from products that we would throw away.
So, this is a carrot ginger maple popcorn.
The first thing that jumped out to me is that this feels like a snack.
It leaves and resets for the next bite,
which is, at its core, the purpose of a savory snack.
-Mm-hmm. -What I really like is...
-when you look at a pile of carrot pulp... -Uh-huh.
...it's not just fiber.
There are tastes, aromas, colors.
And the way that you went about extracting those flavors...
-Yeah. -...is really brilliant.
It's a lot of flavor considering it's pulp.
You have maple and ginger and carrots in a way that is harmonious,
but also ready to hit the air the second it hits my tongue.
Yeah.
I have had so much bad stuff with just dehydrated ginger that's two years old.
Yeah.
-Mm! -And...
-So bad. -So bad.
So bad ginger.
And this tastes like
you went into the heart of ginger
and came out with like, the shining jewel at the middle.
[Helen] It's very subtle in a good, clean way.
-[Ali] Yeah. -[Helen] From a supply chain perspective,
it does make sense that you used something neutral like popcorn
and added the sustainability season in your style.
Why wouldn't you have made your own neutral base?
I could have. I was thinking about doing a rice cake, to be honest.
Like, a puffed rice thing.
-You can make a good one. -Yeah.
But the reason I didn't do that was because
the rice cake is so dense and crispy,
and all that other stuff, like, the dryness overtakes that flavor easily.
Popcorn was literally the only vehicle I could get this flavor out on.
[Helen] What happened to your green chips?
I just flubbed them. I was worried... It wasn't dehydrating fast enough.
If I had another hour or two, I could've put it out, but I didn't feel...
Like you said, I have to give you what I'm comfortable with.
I super dig the choice of popcorn. It's like a beautiful showroom
for this, like, incredibly shiny flavor profile that you created.
[Sandy] Yeah.
[Ali] I would've liked more salt.
But I think you've hit on something that's not just a snack.
I think you've hit on a way to change the industry's approach to flavorings.
[Helen] The innovation is how you seasoned it.
-Yeah. -Yeah. I agree.
-Thank you so much. -Thanks. Appreciate it.
-Thanks, Sandy. -Thank you.
-[cheering] -Mm.
-Thank you. -Good job, Sandy.
[expectant music playing]
I'll be sad to go back to making snacks for myself.
It's true.
Those two continued to make this a really hard job.
Such a departure from the other challenges we've had.
They're no longer being judged on the same criteria in a way.
Yeah, it's free-form.
It's seeing whatever is rattling around in their brain.
And they really went in very different directions.
Yeah. So let's talk about Lauryn B.
-I think her concept... -[Helen] Yes.
[Ali] ...is clear as day.
And humanity wants it so badly.
Yes. I love that I could close my eyes and it tasted like a pot of sauce,
and not just another tomato powder concoction.
[Ali] Mm-hmm. Agreed.
The idea that she's trying to create a mobile bowl of pasta
that rehydrates in your mouth and is snack-y, it's completely new.
I think it could have been dehydrated an extra... day.
Like, there's almost no level of dehydration that'd be too much.
[Helen] Mm-hmm.
What we got was something that was pleasantly crumbly,
but ultimately chewy in the center.
Mm-hmm.
-Let's talk Sandy. -Okay.
He is completely different from any person who has designed snacks I've ever met.
He has a different perspective.
And it would have never occurred to me
to do a butter extraction on a bunch of carrot pulp to pull out the aroma.
What he brings and how he does it,
I absolutely agree, would make him a great asset.
But is the innovative seasoning method gonna sell the popcorn
next to all the other popcorn people that are innovatively seasoning
with new meat flavors and Korean barbecue flavors?
I don't think it shouts enough.
But that mindset is something that we need to see in the snack world.
-I agree. -Yeah.
It's tricky.
[tense music playing]
Both are ready?
-Mm-hmm. -Okay.
[suspenseful music playing]
We could not be more impressed with either of you.
You both did a tremendous job today.
[Hari] You know, honestly, we would both let you have the money.
You know, share it.
[between teeth] But a couple of us are sticklers for the rules.
So, judges, whose snack was the most likely to dominate
the marketplace of the future?
And which chef will take home $50,000?
[suspenseful music builds]
Lauryn B, congrats.
You are the winner.
[cheering]
[applause]
[Clara] Whoo!
[upbeat music playing]
[cheering]
[applause]
[Clara] Whoo!
Well, Lauryn B, how does it feel?
Honestly, I want to say, did you say the wrong name?
-Um... -[chuckles]
I didn't think that I could do something like this.
[voice breaks] So, it just feels really great to know that I can.
And I could compete against the best.
Lauryn B, thank you for a great concept that was delicious to eat from first bite.
Thank you.
Thank you for making food that tastes explosively snack-y,
and also comforting like we're in good hands.
Sandy, you've done an amazing job in this competition.
You've got huge potential and can't wait to see what you do next.
Thank you, guys.
Lauryn B, you won $50,000!
[contestants laughing]
-Drinks on, Lauryn B! -[contestants] Congrats!
-Congrats! -Pretty great, right?
[cheering]
[upbeat music playing]
[closing theme music playing]