If you were living under a rock, the MasterChef Australia 2012 finale was on last night. Relive it here.
Can Julie prove her worth as the first winner of MasterChef? Will Marion live up to her former popularity? Or will the Kuminator Kuminate his way to victory? Yep, it’s All Stars time in the MasterChef Kitchen as our favourites try to out cook each other in the name of charity! And we’ll be blogging the launch here, LIVE ACST!
The lights turn on in the MasterChef kitchen not 24 hours since they were last turned off (in TV time) as twelve favourites from 2009, 2010 and 2011 return. Julie, Poh, Chris, Justine, Callum, Marion, Jonathan, Aaron, Kate, Kumar, Dani and Hayden will fight it out over three weeks.
They all enter where the three judges are waiting for them again! We hear what some of them have been up to.
So, if you haven’t seen ANY ad, there are three teams split for each year of MasterChef. Kate and Julie will act as captains of their respective teams. With Adam not in the 2010 lot due to other commitments, they are allowed to pick their captain. They go for 2010 runner up Callum Hann for this role.
So, to the challenge.
Challenge Brief: Recreate the infamous croquembouche! Adriano Zumbo comes in with the infamous dessert to fear on the contestant’s faces. They will get to construct the croquembouche in teams- but it’s a relay team! They choose their order of play. The winning team will win $5,000 for each member and a major advantage going into the next challenge.
Conditions: Each person has 30 minutes cooking time before they have to swap in their relay. 45 minutes will be rewarded to the final cook.
Progress: They all have their own team meetings with 2011’s Kate to go first. 2010’s Callum will go first for his team with Aaron following. 2009’s Julie will go first for her team as she did best back when she competed in the challenge. So, here we go. How much have they all improved? Julie wants to be cleaner, but it aint working.
We hear some of the charities being supported, but for time management, I’ll put them at the bottom of this blog post later. Kate is behind where she wants to be while Callum is pulling his pastry magic on his bench.
Julie’s shaking begins, as infamous as it was. Poor Julie; I never actually watched her season, so it’s great to see her in action! Soon, swap over begins. Kate, Callum and Julie are replaced by Kumar, Jonathan and Justine respectfully. Adriano is worried Justine is piping the pastry too thickly. She has to try again, but her team won’t let her. WHAT? DO IT!
Jonathan is surprising his teammates, but for all the wrong reasons. Before Kumar, Jonathan was the big bad eliminator. With this performance, he may not be so lucky this time around.
Kumar is not so happy at Kate’s progress, but he cheerfully continues the piping of the pastry. It’s so good to have Kumar back!
I don’t know what Jonathan’s doing except making a lot of mess- but he soon seems to gather a rhythm and he seems to keep his team ahead of the pack! 30 seconds remain until the next cook enters the kitchen!
On changeover, it’s Dani for Team 2011 who continues on the custard and begins on the caramel, Aaron for Team 2010 who doesn’t like cooking desserts and I think Poh for Team 2009. No, it’s Chris!
Team 2009 are confused as to what Aaron is doing on Team 2010. He’s dipping the balls in caramel, which Chris isn’t doing. He’s in the wrong here.
At the end of the third shift, Team 2010 seems to be the most ahead while Team 2011 have just done as much as they can. For the last shift, it seems the most successful contestants from each season, Poh, Marion and Hayden, have been left for last.
The 2009 team have cut a few corners along the way and the profiteroles keep bursting open. Poh is not in a good place right now. She runs out of custard, so she has to complete the croquembouche with empty shells, hoping the judges don’t pick them.
Now, it’s time to tip the croquembouche. Poh finishes a lovely stack…but the empty profiteroles aren’t standing and the tower is slowly collapsing. Meanwhile, Marion successfully flips her croquembouche cone, as does Hayden. Wow, how is the 2009 team doing so poorly?
To finish, the contestants begin on their sugar web. Hayden is smashing it! He’s apparently had practice on a croquembouche. Poh is doing surprisingly poor. Marion is coping. Soon, time is up and it’s time to taste!
Tasting & Results
Team 2009: The cheeky buggers bring in Adriano’s croquembouche! They notice the croquembouche is smaller than some of the others and there are some other visual abnormalities as well. Does it taste nice? And what do you know- Adriano grabs an unfilled profiteroles. Oh, Poh. Nevertheless, Gary likes the consistency and George calls the custard the highlight while also praising the caramel. Adriano doesn’t like the texture of the custard as much as the others do but he enjoys the caramel.
Team 2010: They love the look of the croquembouche. George likes the look of the caramel and Adriano calls it well proportioned. Upon tasting, Gary calls it very tasty. He likes the profiteroles and the custard. Adriano enjoyed it as well however says the caramel coverage of the balls are a bit inconsistent.
Team 2011: They love the look of it and Gary is exceptionally proud of Hayden’s sugar spinning technique. They can’t wait to taste it. Could it be that the year that was criticised the most for poor-performing dishes win this round? They absolutely praise the custard but George thinks it is a bit too sweet. George argues with Matt and Adriano, saying he doesn’t think the custard is the best. It’s a toss-up whether they have the best pastry or not.
Result: The team who wins $5,000 for each member is… Team 2011! That’s $5,000 for Kate’s TEAR Foundation, Hayden’s BoysTown, Dani’s Starlight Foundation and Kumar’s Doctors Without Borders. They also win an advantage going into the next challenge.
Wow, I’m so happy for them! In essence, they are the underdogs here. A season of MasterChef that met a lot of criticism and here they are winning the first challenge of MasterChef: All Stars. Who will win the next?
MasterChef: All Stars next airs Jul 29 at 7.30PM on TEN.
Other charities for the contestants:
Aaron Harvey- Salvation Army
Jonathan Daddia- Oxfam
Marion Grasby- Save The Children
Callum Hann- Cancer Council
Justine Schofield- Youth Off The Streets
Chris Badenoch- Salvation Army
Poh Ling Yeow- Cambodian Children’s Fund
Julie Goodwin- Oxfam
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