MasterChef Thurs: No sugar

In a very challenging cook, the contestants must make a sweet dish without using refined sugar.

Really? Is it that challenging? Cooking without refined sugar has been a thing for ages and gained pace in the past five years.



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14 Comments

  1. I love MC but not this season, or at least not yet.
    This challenge for this episode smacks of desperation.
    For goodness gracious me, I know at least a dozen ways to make a dessert without using sugar, and my cooking skills are marginal at best, as my profile picture testifies.
    They are really stretching the limits of my credibility and I think I might bow out. Again.

    • They made it seem like it would be so difficult but I agree with you Bobi. There are many ways to make desserts without using processed sugar.
      There there is Derek who makes yet another panna cotta. Tati who makes another ice cream and uses banana leaves again. Top ten…LOL.
      This is a season where most contestants are not innovative and the dishes are boring and repetitive.

    • SBS is doing sweet week, and I suspect so much better.
      I am guessing that the ratings will be taking a hit.

  2. Damn it. I wish it were that silly woman with the banana leaves. I guess she’ll go back to her trusty curries next week … maybe she can wrap herself in a banana leaf and say ‘this is me on a plate.’

    Anushka is a hoot and has proven to be a very talented cook. Those layer cakes are a distant memory.
    But I’d like to know what the hell that Token Bogan is doing in the Top 10 – and why he got back in the first place. Do they think the kiddie ‘garden educator’ (whatever that means) has charm? I don’t see it, nor any remote cooking ability.

  3. I cracked up laughing when Matt said just before judging that he was excited to try the dishes as everyone had “stepped out of their comfort zone”.

    Yeah right. Tati pulled out her 12,578,904th something or other wrapped in a banana leaf, Sandeep made his 34,908,435th Indian dish, we saw this season’s 43,906,789th icecream and 32,908,326th panacotta. Simon figured that if Timbo(gan) got in the top ten with a crappy fig dish, then they could hardly refuse his mediocre fig disaster. At least Anushka did something vaguely interesting and slightly different. Colour me bored to tears.

    I thought they would send Tati home to even up the sexes in the final ten, but I’m not sorry to see Sandeep go as he is a “one cuisine” cook and has floundered when he is forced to cook non Indian food. I think Tati isn’t going to stay much longer either for much the same reason. I’d love to see her try to incorporate banana leaf into a French Haute cuisine dish.

  4. Too bad they won’t eliminate more than one contestant. Tati, Sandeep, Derek and Simon should all have walked out the door. Banana leaves, ice cream, panna cotta, simple rice pudding, granola, figs with under cooked twill….time to leave the MC kitchen for being boring and repetitive and lacking creativity.
    At least Anushka tried to be innovative although didn’t she make lady fingers before or was that someone else? At least she didn’t make a layer cake.
    What will Tati do once all the banana leaves are used up? 😉

  5. Oh, I was sorry to see Sandeep go – he seemed like a really lovely guy and a committed cook. It was a stupid challenge. Smugly decreeing, no you can’t use that, it has added refined sugar! But allowing honey and maple syrup… Seems unlikely at this point a man – apart from Ben! – could win this year, as they are all pretty poor to shaky in the dessert department.

  6. Compared to previous seasons, there were some pretty desserts. Jess and Reynold from previous seasons were so much better than this lot.

    I thought 2 seasons ago we were sick with ice cream from Ice cream Ben (at least he did make a career out of it). Now everyone is making ice cream.

    One blogger from UK who is watching MC for the first time, was asking do Australian live on Panna cotta

  7. Editing made it look like Simon was going so I was pretty pleased it was Sandeep instead. He can have have no complaints as he won a pin and outlasted half the field just by cooking one type of cuisine.

    Agree that we have seen too many panna cottas and ice cream so far. Even the banana leaves found their way inside a dessert challenge. Level of creativity is just going downhill season after season.

  8. It was ridiculous leaving stuff in the pantry that they weren’t allowed to use. Usually they take them out. Poor Derek kept being told no you can’t use that. Really thought it was Simon going home, his dish looked dreadful. And what’s the obsession this year with putting beetroot in desserts? Was sad to see Sandeep go but he really struggled.

  9. Finally watching the end of it now. Amazing how so many of them were thrown by the no refined sugar rule, except Nushi – the fact she’s an experienced baker certainly helped but I feel most of the “safe” girls would also have done well. Simon is very lucky – and he knows it. And yes it was another bloody pannacotta but Derek’s dessert looked pretty and at least had several elements. I think Sandeep is a cracking cook with savoury Indian dishes so hopefully he is able to work in that area

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