And that’s it! Thanks so much for following along in the first blog back for the 2021 season.
Feel free to send me an email some time through the week with what you’d like to see going forward! I love getting your messages and respond to everything I can - even if it’s just random gossip or declarations of love for contestants (those are the best kinds of emails actually).
Tomorrow night: it’s time to crack out that cookbook your aunty definitely gave you for Christmas. “Superstar week” continues with Yotam Ottolenghi.
I’ll see you back here next Sunday! x
Updated
Yo Yo is eliminated
Jock starts with the good news: Brent the boilermaker has cake of the day! Old mate bloody did it.
Tom and Maja are also safe, as we knew they would be. It all comes down to Yo Yo and Conor’s cake mullet. And, in the end, Conor’s rhubarb saves him from elimination.
Yo Yo is the second contestant eliminated from the MasterChef kitchen. People are crying already!
“My overall MasterChef experience was short, sharp and shiny,” she says - which is also an accurate description of Conor’s cake mullet.
Updated
Also.. why are we still pretending Nigella made this cake?
I can't believe Nigellas cake is still fresh after she made it and had to ship it to Australia. Technology is amazing #MasterchefAU
— leakelodeon (@Asamishair) April 25, 2021
The judges are slowly prodding around Yo Yo’s pile of sugar slop. Melissa crunches down on a piece of cooked rhubarb like it’s a raw carrot. The meringue is underdone.
There is nothing good to say, so everyone sits in silence.
Connor: *has one hard day*
— Kristen Amiet (@KrissiAmiet) April 25, 2021
Yo Yo: hold my beer #MasterChefAU
It’s probably a good thing Nigella has gone.
Time to taste: Yo Yo
Yo Yo is being very positive for someone with half a cake. This awful day was an opportunity to grow, she says. She simply loves to be challenged! Every misfortune is a gift!
This is very mature stuff from someone who is 19 years old (HOW IS SHE ONLY 19 YEARS OLD) and also definitely the kind of thing you script when you’re certain you’re going home.
Time to taste: Tom
Tom’s cake looks very similar to Nigella’s, if not a little too dark.
But it’s more complicated on the inside. The meringue, rhubarb and anglaise are all perfect, but the rhubarb juices have seeped down and collapsed part of the cake.
That sounds... very bad, but Jock says “it’s nothing in the scheme of things”. Ok!
Time to taste: Maja
Maja’s cake looks smooth and sophisticated. She’s calm and confident.
Unfortunately, it’s not all good news: the cake isn’t moist enough and Mel calls it “a very good attempt” - that thing you say when you definitely don’t rate something.
Another day, that might have mattered… But it’s really just nitpicking when you’re up against Conor’s mullet and Yo Yo’s cake which is suffering male pattern baldness.
Time to taste: Conor's mullet
Conor has baked a mullet. “Cake mullet!” everyone yells, which sounds fun but is really just a jaunty way of saying you messed up.
Cake mullet, we're here for it 🍰 #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/evPS5bvQmr
— masterchefau (@masterchefau) April 25, 2021
I think this cake kicked a bag for the Doggies over the weekend?
The flavour of the rhubarb is great, but the cake itself is too doughy and hard. The meringue hasn’t been whipped enough either.
Mel says she thinks Conor really “exhibits everything about front of house”. Ie) not where chefs go.
Conor is in trouble.
The happy music is playing!
Andy says Brent has exceeded his expectation - after all, Brent’s a bloody tradie!! We were all expecting a bloody Four’n Twenty.
The sponge is light and fluffy, the rhubarb is holding its shape, and the creme anglaise isn’t too sweet. Brent the boilermaker will bake another day.
Time to taste: Brent
Brent’s cake is first up, and it looks good - but also a lot flatter than Nigella’s.
“I was really trying to get it up, but it wouldn’t do it,” he says.
Around Australia, 1 million dads are screaming “that’s what she said”.
Nigella’s handing over to the judges, who will eat on her behalf. Everyone screams “thank you Nigella!!” and waves.
TIME’S UP!!
Conor and Yo Yo are definitely on the bottom of this one.
Conor’s cake was wonky (“It’s quite dense, but it stands.”) and he piped on the meringue in lots of tiny blobs instead of teasing it out.
Yo Yo doesn’t have enough meringue to cover the outside of her cake. So that’s actually much worse.
Tom is going from strength to strength, still ignoring his many friends and colleagues offering him endless love and support.
Brent the boilermaker is trowelling on his meringue like he’s laying bricks. It’s like a bloody job site in there!! Phwoar. Too right.
Yeah, I’m just going to post this every time:
Say it! #masterchefau pic.twitter.com/HsbTCR6n1p
— Felicity Watson (@felixexplody) April 25, 2021
More bad news for Yo Yo: her cakes have also overcooked. Everything is falling apart. There’s 10 minutes to go and everything except her surprise custard is ruined.
Everyone’s cooks are crumbling under the extra pressure of this anglaise.
Wow, how dare Nigella ask for a custard in a cooking comp!?!? #MasterChefAU
— Dean Nye (@Dean_Nye) April 25, 2021
Yo Yo’s finished the custard but she gets back to the oven and her rhubarb has turned into a vat of pink slop. It’s an absolute massacre.
It looks like someone has chewed up a bunch of old rose petals and spat them into an oven tray.
“Well done, Tom!” says someone on the gantry, while Tom completely ignores them.
Tom is the first contestant who is genuinely ignoring the gallery which I absolutely respect #MasterChefAU
— Maya (@tweetmayatweet) April 25, 2021
“If Nigella wants custard, she’s getting custard,” Tom says.
I’m only just realising that, in reality, Nigella is getting nothing. The entire tasting portion of this episode is going to be incredibly awkward.
FYI the contestants are not making it easy on themselves:
Wait is he whipping meringue by hand omfg #masterchefau
— khanh (@khanhong) April 25, 2021
In Nigella’s actual recipe for this cake it says “it’s not as if I’m asking you to whisk by hand”.
Nigella’s last-minute twist!
As if this wasn’t quite hard enough, Nigella drops a custard bomb.
“Don’t hate me!” she says. This is, of course, how all successful women are required to start their sentences.
“When I think rhubarb, I think custard. And what goes very well with this cake is a smooth, not too sweet - and cold - creme anglaise.”
The contestants now have to whip up a cheeky cold custard to go with the cake.
Brent is feeling confident about the baked rhubarb, and he’s “ready to rock and roll” with the egg whites.
Can’t believe Nigella didn’t include that iconic phrase in her food poem.
30 mins down, one hour to go!!
And you know what, the cooking would be way more entertaining if Nigella could actually leave her large techno plinth and actually speak to the contestants.
Brent the boilermaker is in panic mode, so Andy and Jock try to talk him down.
“I’m used to getting paid by the hour!!” he says. “I’ve got the boss looking down my neck.”
And you know WHY he says that, right?
Say it! #masterchefau pic.twitter.com/HsbTCR6n1p
— Felicity Watson (@felixexplody) April 25, 2021
Updated
Quick one for the ad break: who are we vibing this season?
It’s hard to barrack for the queers when there are so many of us in the running. Maybe representation is bad, now I have to decide if I like reality tv contestants based on their skills or personality instead of just whether or not they’re fam. #masterchefau
— Maeve Marsden (@maevemarsden) April 25, 2021
Tweet me (@msmegwatson) your favourite contestant and why you’re into them!
Updated
That strategy doesn’t work very well. He accidentally pours some egg whites into the sponge mixture instead of oil and has to start all over again.
Everyone’s slowly figuring out how to build the mystery cake. Tom and Yo Yo are feeling confident. Conor and Maja have everything under control. But Brent is sweating over Nigella’s long poem and muttering random adverbs under his breath.
If I was a contestant in this pressure test, I'd have finished listening to Nigella's description, taken off my apron, walked out the kitchen door, walked to the Yarra, jumped in, and let myself drift out to sea.#MasterChefAU
— Great Sage (@Mr2046) April 25, 2021
The judges have swivelled Nigella away from the contestants so they can taste the cake in secret.
“The rhubarb is where it’s at,” Andy says, showing off his literary prowess to one of the most celebrated food writers of our time.
She thanks him, the judges leave and then she’s left alone, trapped, staring at a cake on the other side of the world that she definitely did not bake.
I could listen to Nigella talk forever, but look this is not wrong:
Nigella’s description is basically every cooking blog post ever that goes on and on about the ‘story behind the dish’ while I sprain a thumb scrolling down as quickly as possible to get the damn RECIPE #MasterChefAU
— Fiza Zali (@fizawanders) April 25, 2021
Conor is furiously scribbling on the cake description. Nigella’s voice is running through his head like she’s his dead wife and he’s trying to avenge her death.
It’s all very dramatic until you remember he is trying to bake a large fluffy cake.
Nigella starts reading the description of the cake like it’s a Calm sleep story. Which is ironic because it is simultaneously the most stressful thing these contestants have ever heard in their lives.
It’s all classic Nigella. The rhubarb is “fabulous, flamboyant and beguiling”. The meringue is “extravagant”. The only concrete direction about the actual cooking of the thing is that an oven needs to be “hottish”. They have 90 minutes to cook.
Brent the boilermaker has never even heard of the word beguiling, which is not a great start.
“I’m a tradie!!” he says, in case anyone forgot.
Round two: Nigella’s pressure test
It’s the first pressure test of the season! And it sounds almost impossible.
Nigella has written a description of one of her favourite dishes, and the contestants have to recreate it from that description alone. No ingredient list. No recipe. No visual reference.
Conor is stoked!
Tom and Dan both get the first biscuit correct in their sudden death round, but Tom stumbles on the second. He guesses peanut instead of sesame.
While slinking over to join the others, he gives Yo Yo the saddest elbow bump I’ve ever seen.
And that’s saying something because elbow bumps are already inherently depressing.
The tweets so far are very pro-Brent and anti-Conor..
10 out of 18 is actually pretty respectable for someone who couldn't taste anything but peppermint #MasterChefAU
— Shae OPULEEEEEEEEEENCE Barry (@sarahliz92) April 25, 2021
Surely you could tell at least four of those biscuits without even tasting them #MasterChefAU
— Robyn ⋈ (@robynmelbourne) April 25, 2021
Thoughts and prayers to Trent, who missed out on Nigella by one week </3
SO jealous everyone on my season got to cook for the mee-cro-wah-vey kween 😭 #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/RrkiULT0n5
— Trent ✌🏻 (@trent_vu) April 25, 2021
The contestants in the bottom five: Conor, Brent, Maja and Yo Yo.
Conor only got four correct, which is so bad it’s actually impressive. Some of those bickies were chocolate and vanilla??
The thought of failing that hard in front of Nigella makes me physically ill.
Tom and Dan are tied for the fifth spot and go to sudden death.
The results are in, and Linda and Tommy have topped the class with a score of 15/18. Huge stuff.
These biscuits sound rank. Vegemite. Garlic. Anchovies.
“I know this one because I had it in a ceasar salad dressing,” someone says, inexplicably.
I feel like an idiot because I kind of thought they were gonna crack open a pack of Arnott’s Assorted Creams.
Elsewhere, Conor is having a breakdown and randomly naming various types of essential oils and Andy tries to make friends with Nigella by offering the hologram a biscuit.
It’s a bit like when a puppy starts barking at a dog on the TV.
Tommy is having a great time snacking on his biscuits. Lemon! Rosemary! What a treat!
Brent, a burly boilermaker from Queensland, has cooked it because he walked into the kitchen with a mouthful of mints. Everything tastes like peppermint.
I don’t know about you, but there’s nothing that gets me in the mood for competitive cooking like a gob full of Fisherman’s Friends, my tongue numb and raw from menthol.
Round one: eat some bickies
Nigella’s challenge will take place over two rounds. The first is a taste test: everyone has 15 minutes to taste and identify 18 biscuits. The five people who name the least flavours will have to cook for their place in the competition.
Everyone has an extremely normal reaction to hearing they have to eat some yummy little bickies.
HOLOGRAM NIGELLA
Mel announces that it’s “superstar week”! Some of the best chefs and biggest names in food will be joining them in the kitchen. Tonight’s cameo, Mel says, has been an inspiration of hers for a very long time.
“She loves food about as much as is humanly possible … she has nurtured generations of food lovers through her recipes and words for over 20 years.”
It’s a woman. British. And has Mel’s personal seal of approval. Everyone’s preemptively losing it.
“IT’S NIGELLA LAWSON!!”
Nigella appears via a life-sized screen, live from London. It’s exciting and disturbing and somehow still extremely horny.
Everyone’s wearing black aprons today because it’s an elimination cook. But three contestants - Therese, Elise and Wynona - won elimination pins earlier in the week so they can choose to tap out whenever they like.
That’s a point of difference to previous years: they don’t have to decide to play the pin at the start of the cook. They could also use it mid-cook, if they mess something up.
Don’t worry about knowing who those three people are yet. There are roughly 500 contestants at this stage of the comp.
Everyone walks into the MasterChef kitchen and finds little tins with a Union Jack on their tables. “It’s British!!” they say. Can’t get anything past this lot.
“The Queen is actually coming,” someone adds. And, in a way, they’re right.
Aaand we’re on! Thanks for joining me tonight. I’m so excited to scream into the internet about Nigella with you.
Hello - and welcome back to the MasterChef liveblog! The 13th season of this very sweet and undying show is now underway, and I’ll be guiding you through every Sunday night elimination.
Do you enjoy unnecessarily stressing about the way strangers cook chicken? Are you a fan of recreational crying? If so, you have come to the right place.
As I wrote earlier this week, this season is packed with great stories. There are loveable tradies who have traded in their work boots for kitchen Crocs, a cancer survivor reclaiming her food dreams after regaining her sense of taste, and a loving mother who wants to create a legacy for her family with a Bangladeshi cookbook.
“Where have you been?” “Just at home” *sound of a million women crying 😭 #MasterChefAU
— Gabrielle Jackson (@gabriellecj) April 19, 2021
Naturally, these legends all made it through the first few eps. But we’ve already lost a few others.
Shoutout to Ben, the overconfident flight attendant who inexplicably thought he knew better than Melissa Leong (spoiler: he didn’t).
My sexuality is Melissa Leong interrupting a man. #masterchefau
— Maeve Marsden (@maevemarsden) April 19, 2021
Also Malcolm Turnbull’s lovely long lost twin brother.
This #MasterChefAU contestant looks like someone tried to draw Malcolm Turnbull from memory. pic.twitter.com/iaUNlAeTVO
— Jo Thornely (@jothornely) April 20, 2021
I was also sad to lose Trent, who became the first of the top 24 to be sent home from elimination on Thursday. He really went out of his way to fail, serving what was essentially a plate of dried lemon myrtle and this discount egg tart that’s been stepped on by a Coles bakery worker.
They ask you how you are, and you just have to say that you're fine, when you're not really fine, but you just can't get into it because they would never understand #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/E1imNgXqCI
— Trent ✌🏻 (@trent_vu) April 22, 2021
Tonight’s show kicks off at 7.30pm and another contestant will be sent home - this time by a hologram of Nigella Lawson. I’m not joking. This is going to be good.
.@Nigella_Lawson's kicking off Superstar Week with a mysterious Elimination challenge! 🌟 #MasterChefAU 7.30 tonight on @Channel10AU and 10 play on demand. pic.twitter.com/cqqTgVjMTJ
— masterchefau (@masterchefau) April 25, 2021
Follow along and tweet me anytime at @msmegwatson!
