TV

‘MasterChef Australia’ Recap: Ticking Timers, Poh, And The Battle Of The Chiffon Cake

Sorry Gordon Ramsay, but a clock is a terrible "gift".

by Michelle Rennex  20 April 2020
masterchef recap elimination poh cake

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Last night, we said goodbye to our first all-star of the season in a timer-themed elimination cook off.

Before guest judge Gordon Ramsay said toodles at the end of the last episode, he left a little black gift for the contestants. Upon walking into the kitchen on elimination day, the singular gift had suddenly multiplied by 23. Magic!

Sitting on each contestants station — bar immunity-winner Callum, who stood all alone on the gantry staring down at the vulnerable peasants below — the judges asked the cooks to guess what could be in the box.

“A ticket to London to go and dine with Gordon at his restaurant! Mint sauce! Tea, that’s pretty British,” shouted the all-stars. And of course, they were all wrong. It was actually the ~gift of time~ — aka a state-of-the-art cooking timer set to 90-minutes.

Tbh, the gift made little sense considering challenges are always timed using that hard-to-miss clock in the middle of the room, but I guess logic wasn’t a necessary ingredient in yesterday’s cook. So Jock went on to explain how Gordon’s (very bad) gift would fit into the elimination challenge. Turns out the 90-minute timer would be part of a two-round cooking challenge, where you could split your time as you saw fit for each round.

Obviously more of a curse than a gift, the judges let the contestants know that there were no other challenge restrictions besides time. With an open pantry and the option of either sweet or savoury, the cooks were simply required to stop their clocks when they were done plating, and tastings would happen as dishes were completed.

From there, the five worst dishes would go into round two for the final cook-off, using whatever time each chef had remaining.

With that, everyone went into strategy mode. While most decided to opt for a 50/50 split in time, some decided to bash out the quickest dish they could think of. One of these people was Chocolate Balloon Boy Reece, who chose to whip up a quick chocolate and coconut yogurt dessert. Sadly, the DIY king decided to not utilise any party tricks this time to leave himself as much time as possible for the second round in case he needed it.

Meanwhile, despite Melissa gassing up Lynton by telling him she liked the look of the whole fish, Jock totally shaded him. As Lynton and his entire fish walked by the judges, Jock said he definitely wouldn’t be doing time-consuming tasks like filleting a fish, making a sauce reduction or roasting anything if it were him. But clearly still buzzing off the skills he learned from the Gordon Ramsay immunity cook along, Lynton decided to literally everything Jock said not to.

At the same time, Melissa learned that Dani — choosing to not use her immunity pin — was continuing her Asian theme with a seafood hot and sour Thai soup. Similarly, Fedora Chris went for the quick route and opted for a Korean-style beef tartare, which required no real cooking at all.

Even Dessert King Reynold shied away from time-consuming dessert, instead cooking a slow-roasted quail with the hopes of finishing within 45 minutes. Laura, again, decided to focus in on impressing ex-boss Jock by cooking one of his “all-time favourite” dishes, hand-rolled pici Cacio e pepe.

Convenient that, considering just last week Jock said that pineapple curry (the dish Dani was cooking) was his “favourite” recipe too. I’m sensing a very suspect pattern here.

Apparently the only one with balls, Poh backed herself fully and used the entire 90 minutes for her first cook. Deciding to bake, cool and decorate a strawberry lychee chiffon cake, everyone in the MasterChef kitchen — and all those watching at home — thought she was bonkers.

At the 28-minute mark, Chocolate Balloon Boy Reece was the first finished and presented his dessert to the judges, who loved the texture and temperature differences. Two minutes later, Fedora Chris followed by serving his chunky Korean beef tartare, which Jock said didn’t have enough kimchi or seasoning.

Thirty-four minutes in, Courtney presented her ginger and shallot steamed prawns, a dish that was fine but pretty boring in flavour compared to the rest. At the same time, the judges sang praises about Laura’s plate, in particular about the texture of her hand-rolled pasta. Laura, again proving that catering to Jock’s palate works, got sent straight up to the gantry and was immediately safe from elimination.

Sadly for Lynton, his fish dish was deemed beautiful-looking but ultimately lacking in flavour. The same was said about Hayden’s “woefully under-seasoned” pork dish, which was basically just a smaller version of his six-course meat and veg feast from last week. And the judges weren’t fans of the flavours in Rose’s semi-raw Moroccan-style tarts either.

Now the only one left cooking, Poh finally took her cake out the oven and calmly shared that the sponge actually normally takes two hours to cool down. After shoving it in the blast chiller for 15 minutes instead, Poh pulled the cooled cake out with 20 minutes left on the clock.

Starting to carve the chiffon sponge, Poh realises that the cake is still hot in the middle so gives it another five minutes in the chiller. Now with 15 minutes to go, Poh ices and decorates her cake and somehow manages to pause her clock at a nail-biting six minutes.

Despite all the stressful music and montages, Queen of Calm Poh pulled through and the judges absolutely love her light and airy cake. And with that, the bottom five dishes were revealed to be Chris’ not-Korean-enough tartare, Lynton’s flavourless fish, Hayden’s “woefully under-seasoned” meat and veg, Rose’s confusingly-flavoured Moroccan tart and Courtney’s way-too-simple prawns.

With his 60 minutes carrying over from the previous round, in a shock to the judges, meat-loving Fedora Chris ran to the pantry to grab the ingredients for a basque cheesecake — a dish that normally takes an hour in the oven.

Following four minutes later, secret Olympic sprinter Courtney decides to make a roasted cauliflower steak with a cashew and harissa sauce. Also out of breath from all the running around the kitchen, Lynton collects the things he needs for his blue swimmer crab, buckweat, and soy-miso concoction with 44 minutes on the clock.

Two minutes later, Hayden lightly jogs to his station to start the cook on his squid carbonara — that is, a pasta dish where the pasta is actually the seafood itself. Last but not least, at 36 minutes, Rose starts cooking her whole roasted eggplant with pomegranate and garlic dressing served with yogurt flatbread.

As the cooks try to focus with the little time they have, the judges continue to pester them — Jock won’t stop pointing out the fact that Hayden is shaking like crazy while trying to cut his squid and Andy keeps planting seeds of doubt in Lynton’s mind about the flavour of his sauce.

But in some kind of miracle, all the cooks manage to plate their food up on time despite their varying timers. In celebration, Andy randomly lifts Lynton up like it’s some Dirty Dancing scene. It’s not a Bandy Bromance moment, but I’ll take it.

Up first to the tasting room, Lynton’s buckwheat and crab invention didn’t look the best. Andy thought there were a lot of beige tones — despite Jock’s fave Laura’s pasta also being all one-colour — but said it ultimately all came down to flavour. Surprise, they didn’t like the flavour either lmao. The judges all agreed that the dish was, sadly, “dull and textureless”.

Hayden’s squid pasta, on the other hand, was a total smash with the judges. Unlike his under-seasoned pork from earlier, the judges said that the squid was cooked and seasoned perfectly. As was Fedora Chris’ basque cheesecake, which the judges initially thought might’ve been dry judging by the desserts short stature. Similarly, the judges were a fan of Courtney’s cauliflower steak, which was “flavoursome, aromatic and tender”.

Finally, Rose presented her 36-minute smoked eggplant with flatbread. Jock shared that he felt the bread was too doughy and the garlic sauce was too garlicky — which is a blasphemous statement to even make. But the judges agreed, it was dish that they liked, but didn’t love.

But between Rose and Lynton, the judges decided that Rose had the superior dish. Despite winning the service challenge, relay challenge and being in the top three competing for immunity, Lynton — much to the shock of everyone in the room — was sent packing.

In the next episode of MasterChef: Back To Win, the remaining 23 all-stars compete in an off-site BBQ challenge to feed 1200 hungry diners.

MasterChef returns tonight at 7:30pm on Channel 10.

Michelle Rennex is a Senior Writer at Junkee who can’t cook, but enjoys judging people like she can. You can follow her on Twitter at @michellerennex.