Wow, life comes at you fast. Four contestants have gone home since my last recap, and we’re already rocketing into finals week. This joyous little show is almost over.
Luckily there’s nothing else going on today, so we can dedicate our full attention to it.
Look. I know you’re destined to spend the day doom-scrolling an election live blog, but you made the right call to read about some tiny children eating ice-cream first.
Sunday night’s elimination had two rounds. The first was a taste test: the kids had to sample dozens of delicious ice-creams and correctly pick the flavours. Fun!
The second: the four kids who guessed incorrectly had to recreate an ornate snow globe made of sugar inside a fairy floss fireball. It was a world-first dish custom-made by Darren Purchese, a renowned pastry chef with more than two decades of experience.
Um …
Georgia rightly noted that “adults have trouble completing pressure tests [like this] and now they’re getting four kids to”. Ruby’s eyes widened. Filo hung his head, defeated.
Ben, a living cherub, whispered into the void: “I’m only 10.”
Despite all this, the kids really pulled it off. Filo was the MVP. He cruised through each element, kept his bench clean for the first time in the competition, and started talking about Darren Purchese like they went way back. If only I had the confidence of this small Egyptian king.
For the others, the elimination came down to small details. Ruby’s glaze didn’t have enough gelatin. Ben’s cake was too dense. They were both sent home.
It’s sad news for these two exceptional young chefs and catastrophic news for Network Ten: I’m pretty sure 90% of the show’s audience tuned in for Ben and Ben alone, the sweet trumpet-playing Cub scout from Bendigo. Put out your bao buns.
🚨 SPOILER WARNING🚨
— JrMasterChefAU (@JrMasterChefAU) November 1, 2020
What incredibly talented cooks 👏 We'll miss these two in the MasterChef kitchen 🧡 #JrMasterChefAU #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/fRwLtTd7tJ
Unfortunately there’s no time to mourn this loss because the very next night Curtis Stone is buried in a pile of potatoes.
“I always walk around with a potato!” Curtis yells at the children. “Everywhere I go, I always carry a big pot of mashed potato,” he says, inexplicably.
“Say hello to Curtis!” Jock instructs the kids. “He can see you!!!!”
The kids had 75 minutes to make a dish that featured potatoes.
Also, for an extra challenge, every crucial ingredient was placed on the top shelf of an adult-size pantry.
Vienna made some crispy croquettes and Laura nailed gnocchi on her very first try, but the best two dishes came from Georgia and Dev – both curries. Georgia’s dish was a special yellow potato curry from her Sri Lankan grandma. Jock said “delicious isn’t even a good enough word [to describe it]”, and Andy said it made him “excited to live in Australia”.
That’s a pretty great review! Georgia celebrated by showing the country a tooth falling out of her mouth in real-time.
On Tuesday, the kids were given an actual truckload of fruit and veg. It was a good call after a week of ingesting ice-cream, flammable fairy floss, fried potato and fear.
In this elimination challenge, they had to create a dish based around one ingredient. The catch: if they chose a fruit, they’d have to make a savoury dish; if they chose a vegetable, it had to be a dessert.
Most ran towards the easy choices: Vienna grabbed a pumpkin, Filo loaded up on carrots. But Tiffany actively decided to “challenge” herself with zucchini: a vegetable that tastes like dense water.
It doesn’t work out. She makes a smart zucchini sponge cake with a perfect granita, but the judges can’t even taste the main ingredient.
Vienna also runs into trouble with her spiced pumpkin tart. Her main ingredient is used so well, but the tart itself is underbaked.
She couldn’t even save it by going full Poh.
Filo was nervous for the verdict. “I can’t feel butterflies, I can literally feel pigeons running around in my stomach,” he said.
But it’s Vienna and Tiffany who are sent home.
This means that Dev, Georgia, Filo, Carter and Laura are into Sunday night’s semi-final!
What made me feel the most inadequate
Kids are out here making food into magic spheres and turning fennel pollen into sherbert. Laura’s veggie dessert was an incredible fennel and apple sorbet with almond cream, fennel sherbert and blackberry coulis pearls. The judges said it was “one of the best dishes we’ve seen in MasterChef – period”.
Laura's dish is the apple of our eye 🍏😍 #JrMasterChefAU #MasterChefAU https://t.co/foCFSUh2Al
— JrMasterChefAU (@JrMasterChefAU) November 3, 2020
What I’ll be thinking about all week
Honestly, just the support these little legends show each other at every step of the competition. Channel your inner Filo this week. The next time you see someone having a hard time, let them know: “Bro, you’re doing amazing.”
• Junior MasterChef continues on Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday nights on Network Ten. Guardian Australia recaps run each Wednesday
