After losing in yesterday’s relay challenge, Arum, Nicole, Benita, Pete and Ben raced against the clock in tonight’s elimination.
With a total of 90 minutes cooking time, the challenge was for the contestants to buy key ingredients in return for time on the clock.
Arum elected to use ginger, sugar and pistachios, which cost him 20 minutes. He was left with 70 minutes on the clock to cook, as was Nicole who selected the same ingredients.
Ben picked John Dory, artichokes and vanilla beans, taking him down to 55 minutes, while Benita ended up with 45 minutes after selecting prawns, ginger, coriander and soy sauce. Pete selected cherries, vanilla beans, sugar and pistachio nuts, leaving him with 65 minutes.
Arum was confident with his ginger cake with dark caramel and yoghurt and ginger ice cream, while Nicole made good progress with her steamed ginger pudding with Greek yoghurt sorbet and pistachio praline.
Pete raced to make a cherry vanilla layer cake with a Greek yoghurt mousse, inspired by his recent pressure test cook. Ben moved quickly, pan-frying his John Dory, planning to serve it with crispy skin chards, artichokes served three ways and a vanilla bean hollandaise.
Ten minutes later Benita finally joined the cook, planning prawn wontons with a prawn broth. As she prepared her wonton dough, she forgot the broth on the stove and it evaporated, burning the prawn heads and leaving her devastated. She raced with the final five minutes to make a quick sauce.
The judges tasted and loved Arum’s cake and admitted Pete’s layer cake tasted better than it looked. Ben’s fish was delicious and it came down to Nicole, whose pudding was less than impressive and Benita, who served up a dish without a flavoursome broth.
In the end, it was Benita who departed the MasterChef Australia kitchen. Benita has since taken on work experience at Putia Pure Food Kitchen. She is working towards her dream of hosting ladies’ long lunches.
