The week of weird challenges continues on MasterChef tonight as contestants compete in a challenge…in a freezer! Brr…
The contestants head to a processing room where the final six couples remain to take on another challenge. It’s a very cold factory- Norfolk Foods. Today, they will compete in teams of four- Lynton, Liliana, Samira and Rishi; Noelene, Dan, Kelty and Jules and Neha, Nicky, Xavier and Vern.
This is a pressure test and it will take place inside a freezer! It will be at minus two centigrade and the guest chef for today is…Nick Palumbo! He comes out with a chocolate ball! It’s actually a Black Forest gelato cake with many layers and requiring a whole lot of precision. Inside the cake…well, let’s just say is a lot of COMPLEX STUFF!
To make matters worse, this is another relay challenge! The team that makes the most mistakes will lose. They will have 45 minutes each. Everyone will be able to pitch in with assembly in the last ten minutes.
Rishi, Dan and Neha will be going first.
Dan decides to go through his 45 minutes without gloves! Wow, that’s risky! Neha is also not wearing gloves and she already begins shivering. She needs to get every ingredient and every quantity right to make sure the structure is good. She begins on the semifredo.
Dan completes his semifredo and puts it in the blast chiller but the judges show that he has put it in too big a mould. Lucky they were on hand to correct him on his mistake. Dan and also Rishi begin working on their sorbet. This leaves Neha behind.
It’s time to change out- Noelene, Liliana and Nicky take over for their respective teams. They are all working on moulding the cherry sorbet. Liliana is the first person to begin on the gelato. Nicky is also working fast to catch up to the gelato stage. It is now Noelene who is going too slow.
Nicky moves on to the cocoa slicing and he cuts himself!
It isn’t long before Samira, Vern and Kelty take over. Kelty has to make up for Noelene’s slowness. Meanwhile, Nicky has measured out some spices for the mix, but he has put them somewhere that can’t be found.
Kelty needs to get a gelato mix into a churner after bringing it down to temp, but some of the contestants think it’s too warm to go into the churner when he puts it in. He is also worried they haven’t got enough of the mix.
Samira is still waiting for her gelato to get it up to temp for the blast chiller! Luckily, Vern has more luck in getting ahead in the game. It’s now Kelty who is running behind as we head into the final run.
Last up are Lynton, Jules and Xavier. Kelty’s thermo mix is broken as Kelty’s chocolate was too chunky leaving Jules with a lot of stuff to do.
Xavier prepares the blue team’s chocolate dome and it is perfect! Jules is running out of time and is starting to panic.
The yellow team open their moulds and they too get perfect domes despite making duplicates in case of cracks.
Will red make it lucky three?
Yep! Well done, Jules! Unfortunately, the crunchy chocolate is too soft to remove from its mould. The teams go in to help for the final ten minutes, but for the blue team, there’s nothing to do as Xavier finishes.
The red team do all they can to get everything up to- or down to- temperature. Some of their dome is too soft.
In the end, it seems the red team are the most at risk right now!
It’s time for judging.
The blue team’s dish looks absolutely amazing and they can’t be faulted on presentation. The taste is equally bang-on!
Time for the red team. It doesn’t look nearly as good. The taste is amazing though. Faultless.
The yellow team are last. Their structure is also pretty good. There are a few textural problems. I doubt they will send the yellow team packing.
The team out of the group running to compete for immunity/ return to the game are…the red team!
