"Definitely not my favorite bite" - Cutthroat Kitchen: Knives Out judge Maneet Chauhan comments on Tracey's French toast dish

Cutthroat Kitchen: Knives Out season 1, episode 8, titled Doomsday Kitchen, premiered on Food Network on July 1, 2025. As with previous episodes, four chefs went head-to-head in a high-stakes culinary battle, all while navigating a series of wild and unpredictable challenges.

Episode 8 featured Tracey Cenami, Adam Pawlak, Demetrius Brown, and Natalia Roario. Meanwhile, Maneet Chauhan appeared as the guest judge.

After Natalia's elimination in the first round, the rest of the contestants were asked to prepare a fruit-based dessert in the final round. Tracey was planning on making bread pudding, but ended up making a French toast after Demetrius replaced her milk with cottage cheese through his sabotage.

While Maneet praised the use of caramel in Tracey's dish, she didn't like the banana cream aspect of it. She felt that it was "taut," speculating that it might have been mixed with cottage cheese.

"It almost makes me feel like there is some cottage cheese, some yogurt or something which has been mixed along with that. It's definitely not my favorite bite. It's flavors which are fighting against each other," she said.

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What happened during Cutthroat Kitchen: Knives Out episode 8's final round?

For the final round of Cutthroat Kitchen: Knives Out episode 8, host Brian Malarkey informed Tracey, Adam, and Demetrius that they had 45 minutes to prepare their best fruit-based dessert.

The contestants were given one minute to search for the ingredients they would require to prepare their planned dish. Later, when they regrouped in front of the host, they were told that they would get to bid for two sabotages for the final round.

The first sabotage forced the chef to give up their fresh fruit and only use the faux fruit from the production's fruit tree. Adam won it and gave it to Demetrius.

With the second sabotage, the highest bidding contestant could choose a competitor and could either replace their dairy with cottage cheese, or replace their flour with instant mashed potatoes, or replace their sugar with instant tea syrups. Demetrius ultimately won the bid and chose to replace Tracy's dairy with cottage cheese.

Demetrius prepared a fish-based fruit cake with curried ice cream. Guest judge Maneet praised the addition of coconut almond strudel in the dish.

"The consistency of the ice cream is beautiful. It's nice. It's smooth. But the curry powder which has been used in it is raw. They should have cooked the curry powder with the milk," the Cutthroat Kitchen: Knives Out judge added about the dish.

For the finale round, Tracey prepared a banana cream stuffed dessert French toast with a banana vanilla bean caramel. Maneet complimented the use of caramel and fruits in the dish.

However, she felt that if the chef had added another fruit to the dish, it could have been taken to the next level. Other than that, she didn't like the banana cream aspect of the dessert.

Cutthroat Kitchen: Knives Out contestant Adam prepared a mixed berry and brown butter crepe with hazelnut and peanut crumble and a cinnamon cream.

"The crepe looks good. It's slightly on the thicker side. When you think of crepe, you want it to be nice and thin. To me, especially in the cream, there could have been more sugar in this. When we're thinking of dessert, I want sugar," Maneet said about the dish.

The Cutthroat Kitchen: Knives Out judge continued:

"It's the peanuts which are confusing me because peanuts have such a distinct flavor of its own. I just wish the peanuts weren't in it. That's like really fighting the flavors".

At the end of the Cutthroat Kitchen: Knives Out episode, Adam was declared the winner. He had 14,500 left in his bank, so it ended up becoming his prize money for the episode win.

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Cutthroat Kitchen: Knives Out season 1 episodes are available on Food Network and HBO MAX.

Edited by Niharika Dabral