TV Review: MasterChef, episode 9

Dessert dainties prove too much for big Cam. Photo / Supplied

I love it when we get to the pointy end of elimination shows. Audience favourites suddenly get shown the door, the quiet folks who have ambled safely in the middle of the pack start to shoot forward, and the challenges seem more like real life, less gimmicky.

So it was almost to be expected that MasterChef episode nine last night deposed the much-loved and talented Putaruru hunter Cameron Petley.

Cameron made it into the show because of his audition dish of venison, about which, even as they were bidding him farewell, the judges were still raving.

Josh Emmett reckoned it was the best he'd had all over the world, Simon Gault gave it his favourite thumbs-up "awesome" and Ray McVinnie beamed.

You could have seen it coming, though: while he's a natural with producing flavours that are deep, earthy and real, Cam's inexperience in extending himself to different foods and techniques was beginning to show.

He's such a likeable character, however - the modest everyman with magic, and self- effacing wit, a producer's dream - that each time he sweated it out in the bottom two, he made it back into the competition.

Judges and audience were keen to see what he could do next.

But patisserie is a cruel, cruel art that has undone many an otherwise talented chef. When master baker Matthew Metcalfe presented his challenge, you knew there would be tears before bedtime. Aptly dubbed the Chocolate Tower of Terror, the dessert concoction required chefs to create a cone of chocolate topped with disc plates of more chocolate decorated with 48 mini cupcakes. We already knew from that Other Baking Show that these trendy little mouthfuls can be the undoing of even an experienced baker.

Only one of the contestants - the ever-bubbly Tracey Lee Hooten - admitted that cupcakes were her favourite; others abhorred baking.

As Matthew gloomily listed all the things that could go wrong with chocolate, and then added the twister that judges would also be looking for clever themes, not just technical excellence, Jax Hamilton colourfully predicted much tears, tearing of hair and praying to the gods of baking.

"You're not going to break the chocolate," predicted Matthew, "but the chocolate might break you."

Eventual winner Stu is the kind of guy you'd like to have in the kitchen, and this man was not for the breaking. He's cool, calm and organised, he had the novel idea of reading the recipes again and again, tested his cupcake batter not once, but twice, and organising a theme. Nailing a simple colour scheme of blue and yellow - Otago colours - early on in the piece seemed to give him the focus that others lacked.

Michael Lee and Cameron floundered from the beginning, but for different reasons. "Look at my hands, they're not for dainty things," was Cam's Eeyore-like observation. "I just wanted to pack it in and go home."

Michael reckoned he just wasn't fussed about colour schemes and themes, couldn't be bothered testing his batter and ended up serving raw cupcakes. Only Cam's worse performance saved him from the chop.

Tracey-Lee and Nadia were close to tears through the whole challenge, so it was no surprise that Jax and Stu's creations were the best. Jax's darling red and blue tribute to her two home countries meant she really did make the "Olympics of success".

Who knew that the test of a good cupcake was the way the paper cases peeled off? Or that chocolate can go into shock? I know I shall certainly treat the next dessert table with a lot more respect now that Matthew tells me good patisserie is a combination of "art, design, chemistry, technique, presentation and cooking".

As the final five in the next batch of wannabe cook-celebrities get ready to roll off the production line and into a book contract, we can comfortably chew on our chocolate Easter eggs and predict who will make it into the final two in three weeks.

What: MasterChef

When: Sundays 8.30pm on TV One

Catherine Smith is Deputy Editor of Weekend Life and a member of the Food Writers' Guild.