All Star Holiday Dessert Battle Review

I don't mean to be mean, but...


Hmm... I got about six, if you count both sides.

This multitude of fleshy fantasia must be a precursor to the battle's secret ingredient: SUGAR! Paula might want to lay off it a bit, but I guess it's the holiday season so just roll with it, girl!

As you all probably know, Paula Deen teamed up with Iron Chef Cat Cora in a battle against Tyler Florence and Robert Irvine (Team Tybert).

Tyler was pretty calm throughout the entire battle, only showing some sweaty signs of agitation toward the end. Still... he never lost his cool.


I love how Cat Cora always works her ass off during every Iron Chef. She's always got some huge whisk, spoon or knife flying around at 100 mph. Sexy!


Robert Irvine quickly stripped off his chef's coat to reveal that kinda-freaky torso below.


Oh, and Alton just tried to make it through the show without pointing out too much that Paula was using processed cheese food and that Robert Irvine seemed a little more interested in flirting with Paula than cooking.


Paula is really starting to kind of scare me. She used to be a sweet granny from the South. Now, what with all this kissing on the lips of every man she encounters and joking about Robert stripping, she's become something very un-grandmotherly. I don't know... that cackle and those weird, slurring phrases give me the heebie-jeebies.



One of the best parts of the show was when Paula turned to the camera and said something like: "I'm a fixin' to have a DRANK.... enny minnut!" and Alton, obviously shocked at the odd behavior, just said: "Umm... okay. Do that." It wasn't a pretty moment for Paula.

But besides this moment of humor, there wasn't much that really kept me watching for the full hour. Last year's battle (in which they actually cooked entrees) just had a lot more excitement and truly funny moments. This one just seemed very forced-- from everything Paula kept doing to the zany things Robert kept trying to pull "spontaneously" (although they looked very rehearsed).

The food looked like this:



Pretty yummy all around. Nothing I'm going crazy over wanting to try besides the tarte.

Desserts just don't look as pretty as the regular meals usually do on Iron Chef.



Tina even overdosed on sugar, apparently:


Even Tina Fey couldn't right the wrongs in this special. She just didn't have much to work with. When she did talk, it was funny, though. Please bring her back!




Ummm... without having tasted any of the desserts, it's hard for me to say either way if this was a rightful win. I'm happy for Cat, but sad there was no evil reaction by Team Tybert like last year's:



I vote for a Rachael/Giada REMATCH next year!

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So what did you think? Did the right team win?

And who would you like to see battle it out on next year's All Star Holiday Battle?!?!