Tag: Con

MasterChef – May 26 – Cake challenge

The blue team from last night’s fete challenge is facing the firing squad. Well, the cake squad. They have to play Name That Cake. I hope, as with all these challenges, that they don’t bomb out early so we can play along at home.
The first three contestants to fluff on their cake knowhow will be sent to elimination, where they have to bake – you guessed it – a cake. And this will be the last night we see Nigella.


The contestants enter and the cakes are already on display, so as the judges talk they are sneaking peeks. Intense Matt is very worried but you’d imagine if Charlie or Con go through to elimination they at least are used to doing sweet stuff.
Matt gets first pick and chooses what looks like a brick of a lamington – but he’s worried it may be a trick and they are messing with his mind. But, yes, it is what it seems.
Airline captain Brett picks the Swiss roll and then it’s Con’s turn. He picks a carrot cake and Elise grabs black forest (one of my faves), Charlie gets cheesecake. Mimi has orange and poppyseed cake and it’s Matt’s turn again. He grabs the ginormous Victoria sponge cake (how many eggs went into that monster?) and Brett then gets mudcake. So far no tricks. Con gets opera cake, Elise angel cake (does she mean angel food cake?). Charlie is up and he’s sweating bullets. He’s up between what looks like two fruitcakes and Gary and George do the “wow, brave man”. “If you name this, you’re a legend,” says George. Charlie knows it’s not right but he says “fruitcake”. It’s a simnel cake – a type of Easter cake. So Charlie is the first one to bomb.
Mimi grabs a Paris brest, which is like a giant profiterole. Matt selects a cake with chocolate truffles on top but he gets a surprise when he slices it. “I’m worried for you, Matt,” says Gaz. “Even my palms are sweating.” Matt says “chocolate truffle cake” but it’s a Dobos torte. Never heard of it, but thanks to the magic of Wikipedia I now know: A Hungarian sponge cake layered with chocolate buttercream and topped with caramel. The five-layer pastry is named after its inventor, Hungarian confectioner József C. Dobos, who aimed to create a cake that would last longer than other pastries in an age when cooling techniques were limited. The round sides of the cake are coated with ground hazelnuts, chestnuts, walnuts, or almonds, and the caramel topping helps to prevent drying out.
If Intense Matt goes tonight I will be cranky.
Brett reckons it’s time to pick a cake he’s had his eye on from the start and has been keeping up his sleeve – but then he cuts it and he starts second guessing himself. But he goes for moon cake, the Asian treat, and he’s right.


Con comes up for his third go and picks what looks to be some kind of layered meringue. He says continental cake but it’s some Icelandic cake called Vinarterta. So that’s our bottom three – damn – I wanted to know what the other cakes were.
Elimination challenge
Con, Charlie and Matt have 90 minutes to bake a cake. It’s not long to mix, bake and cook a cake for decorating.
Con is making a pound cake but he reckons he doesn’t have a tried and true recipe. He must only know finicky desserts and ABPC recipes. His cake will have a savoury strawberry and thyme savoury syrup and lemon creme fraiche filling.
Intense Matt is making carrot cake with lemon cream cheese icing. Yum, but he’d better tricksy it up a bit – chuck some $7 rocky road on it, Matt. He’s following his mate’s mum’s recipe but he’s spicing it up a bit.
Charlie is baking a chocolate and raspberry sponge cake with hazelnuts but he puts all his mixture into one pan, so it will take longer to cook. Nigella comes over to tell him off for not splitting the mix.
Con is worried about timing so he cranks his temp up to 200C, until Nigella comes over to tell him off as it needs a low, slow, bake. I’m sensing a theme here. Will Intense Matt get a talking to next?
After panicking, Con decide to ignore Nigella and stick with the pound cake. I’m thinking Con is going home.
Matt is doing an onion and carrot jam with star anise and cinnamon for the centre of this cake. He’s the only one doing something a bit different. Then he works on the best bit of any carrot: the lemony cream cheese icing.
Poor Charlie says “it’s do or die” as he realises his sponges aren’t cooked in the centre and he has to bung them back in the oven.
Intense Matt is getting a lot of confessionals about how much fun he’s having, whereas Charlie’s are about all the glitches.
“Now it’s time to just go to town on this bad boy… to make it overloaded with love,” Matt tells the camera.
However, Con is surely going because he got the back story about quitting his job and delaying his wedding.
Charlie has done lots of fancy pants decorating stuff with toffeed hazelnuts, while Matt has gone the rustic look and Con’s cake looks, well, simple and fine, but he’s worried it’s dense.
The judges taste


Matt’s carrot cake: “To me that is everything a home-baked cake should be … it looks generous and it looks like you want to feed someone and make them happy,” says Nigella. George dishes up and it looks terrific. Nigella likes the zing of the marmalade and Gaz is in hog heaven.
Con’s thyme pound cake: “It looks heavy,” say the judges. Nigella says it’s not evenly cooked because he bammed up the heat. Matt says the syrup has barely soaked into the cake: “It’s rubbery, it’s bouncy.” The love the flavours he’s used but not the texture. Oh dear.
Charlie’s choc raspberry hazelnut sponge: The judges say it looks dense. Matt loves the mix of flavours but Gaz says “that cake’s dry and dense” and points out he’s not going back for seconds. But Nigella defends the cake’s honour: “I don’t think it’s a failure as a cake … I don’t think it’s offensive.” Matt says Charlie overbaked it.
They do the “Matt’s safe but the other two are sooooo close”. Yeah, as if you are going to send golden boy Charlie home.

And the loser is …
Ok, first it’s time for the judges to praise Intense Matt and it’s lovely to see the look of joy creep over his face as he absorbs Nigella’s praise. I’m Team Intense Matt.


And Con’s gone. Go home and marry your fiancee – and in a surprise twist, the remaining contestants will cater your wedding! Now, that would be fun. Gaz, for once, is not wearing his cranky pants and tells Con he has talent. And where’s Con now? Moved to Hobart to open a Melbourne-style cafe.
Time for masterclass so I’m out.



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MasterChef – Tues, May 17 – Pass the popcorn

Ooh, this could be fun. Will anyone do a savoury dish, I wonder?
TV blurb says: The three best performers in the invention test must create a dish using popcorn as the core ingredient. The winner will then need to out-cook the professional guest chef for immunity.

So, is it wrong to be watching MasterChef while eating spaghetti from a can? Shh, don’t tell George. Betcha Gaz has done it, though.
Nicolette seems to be the only one who knows what she’s doing for the popcorn challenge. Con is blitzing popcorn with melted what chocolate – I hope he’s going to strain it. But then, he confesses he doesn’t even eat popcorn. Anastasia disappointingly faffed around and tried to cook a giant chook breast with only 15 minutes to go. She’s lucky it’s not an elimination challenge. And she does not know how to pronounce miso.
Con seems to have forgotten popcorn should be prominent, instead building a dessert he obviously had in mind and then trying to shoehorn the challenge to fit.
Do we need to add Not Another Bloody Parfait to the lexicon? Will Nicolette’s dish be too sweet? Anastasia has to fry her sliced chicken and loses her popcorn crumb in the process. She’s no chance. Sad, given she did so well the other day with her maple syrup squid and Spanish quail.
The judges taste and they love his jelly and mousse but there is no popcorn flavour. Is he being secretly paid by Pedro Ximenez?
Anastasia’s dish is tasty but there’s hardly any popcorn.
Nicolette’s popcorn parfait looks interesting and the judges like the plating. Shannon says she showed restrained use of salt and they state the bleeding obvious: she has won. Well, that was a bit of a letdown as it was no competition at all.


Guest chef immunity challenge
It’s the chef from Ricky’s at Noosa: Braden White.


Nic gets to choose from shellfish or fish. Nicolette freaks out because she loves desserts. And Ricky’s specialises in seafood. She picks fish and has 75 minutes to cook. Hopefully Shannon will give her lots of advice. She’s doing confit salmon and has to fillet a massive fish. She is working smoothly but slowly.
She is yet to start pin boning as Brayden – with the obligatory tatt sleeves – picks out mulloway.
The chef is chopping white onions at super ninja speed and he’s talking the contestants of the gantry through his cooking process.
Poor Shannon is doing his best to add tension by yelling stuff like “your reputation is on the line” – God love him.
With less than 20 minutes to go Nic hasn’t started cooking her fish. Her oil is too hot, so she takes some out and adds room temp oil. Now it’s too cold. It’s a Goldilocks moment. We know the judges eat the dishes cold, so why not have started cooking the salmon ages ago – if she stuffed up one piece she would have had time to do a second.
Up on the gantry the airline captain is worried Braden’s fish will keep cooking in the pan after he takes it off the heat.
Thanks to Braden I now know how to make fennel dust from carrot top and fennel fronds. I love a good bowl of dust for dinner.
Time’s up and Nicolette definitely kept her cool for someone who’s only 19. Perhaps she knows more about savoury dishes than she let on.
At least we went one day (probably really two days) in the MC kitchen without someone stacking it.
Time to judge


Nic’s dish looks pretty and delicate and I’d love to eat that crispy salmon skin right now. She got a bit lucky with the confit working. The judges love everything about it but note she hasn’t trimmed the brown bit from the salmon, which gives away who cooked it.
And then Braden’s dish is placed in front of them and it looks so beautiful – and that’s coming from someone who doesn’t believe in flowers on plates. The judges are in plating-up heaven just looking at it. George is itching to get the tweezers out but instead disassembles it with a fork and spoon. “What a clever dish,” George says. Matt loves the different textures but the fish is overcooked. So the comment from the airline captain wasn’t a red herring after all. Ooh. Gaz says it’s a minute overcooked but still delicious.
The scores
Braden’s mulloway
Gaz 8/10 George 9/10 Matt 8/10 and Matt’s the only one they show commenting on the overcooked fish.
Nic’s salmon
Matt 9/10 Gaz 8/10 George 9/10.
She won! That’s a surprise – well done, Nicolette. Braden must be dying inside but Ricky’s is definitely not short of customers.

Coming up
Tomorrow night two teams have to recreate dishes from Melbourne restaurants Huxtable and Pei Modern and have to memorise the ingredients and processes. I would suck at this. Sadly for Huxtable any publicity to be gained from being on MC is too late, as this message is on their website: We regret to inform, after 5 and a half years Huxtable Restaurant has closed for trading.
Sunday is the start of Nigella week, so expect lots of lingering shots of her licking spoons.



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