She got to work soaking the tapioca in coconut milk. Usually tapioca needed to be soaked overnight, but the show had some presoaked stuff that should work well enough. She added in some fresh shredded coconut and mixed it with her hand until it clumped together when pressed. Her grandmother added peanuts when she made sabudanyachi khichdi, which was a savory tapioca hash. The nut protein kept the tapioca from becoming gloppy when cooked. Ashna powdered some cashew nuts and added those to her mixture.

By the time the pancakes were sizzling on the pan, Rico was done with his part and flipping them as she instructed. They had only twenty minutes to pull off the challenge.

“These are good.” Rico popped an extra piece in his mouth.

“As good as the ones they sold at your fiera livre?” As soon as she said it, they both froze. This was all on camera. At least she wasn’t holding a knife.

“No.” Rico smiled at the camera. “Better.”

The skip of joy in her heart brought with it a shadow of fear, but she ignored it and grabbed square black platters and started to plate the bright white pancakes in delicate quarter folds to form a clover. She handed spoons to Rico and he poured doce de leite into them and placed them next to the pancakes.

They were done a good two minutes before the rest of the contestants, but they would still have to act like they were rushing at the end because it made for better television.

“It looks a little plain,” Rico said, taking in everyone else’s workstations, where everything from empanadas to elephant ears and patajones (Danny, naturally) were being tossed up. “Should I cut up some strawberries? It could use some fruit, and maybe whipped cream?”

He was right. It needed something. Plain would definitely get them hammered by the judges. But not strawberries and whipped cream. Not anything so predictable.

Ashna raced to the pantry, picked up a mango, and tossed it at Rico. Then without waiting to see if he would catch it, she turned to grab some saffron and ran back to their station.

“Can you dice the mango?” Before the question was even out of her mouth, he was slicing.

DJ called out the one-minute warning.

Ashna pinched out a fat clump of saffron into a metal spoon, mixed in a few drops of milk, and held it over the fire. The saffron dissolved into the milk, turning it orange, and despite the smells from all the workstations, the aroma of saffron permeated the air.

DJ started to count down the last ten seconds.

Ashna drizzled the saffron milk onto the four spoons of doce de leite just as Rico arranged the mango at the center of each plate.

“And your time is up!” DJ shouted, the strain coming through in his usually calm voice.