The girlies cooked their gorgeous little hearts out in tonight’s finale but Queen Billie McKay has won MasterChef for the SECOND goddamn time, earning herself $250,000!!!!
But that’s not all: runner-up Sarah Todd won $30,000!!! And Jackson Lamble who came in third place walked away with a surprise $20,000!!! The judges were giving out cash like it was going out of fashion!! Where was my invite!!
Here she is! Our MasterChef 2022 winner! 🎉 #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/OEE4gZSH6A
— MasterChef Australia (@masterchefau) July 12, 2022
Celebrations aside, this was honestly a nail-biter. I was sweating so much I had to reapply deodorant.
In round one, the finalists could choose whether they wanted to stick with their brief or give the mystery box a whirl. Sarah went with the former and Billie decided to spice things up with the latter.
Sarah’s sticky chicken wingettes with sweet and sour gravy were a hit with the judges, who awarded her a tidy 26 points.
But poor Billie had a rocky start as she attempted every MasterChef contestant’s nemesis: the dreaded panna cotta. That gelatinous bastard unfortunately didn’t set, which sullied her sweet and savoury dessert: cumin panna cotta with rhubarb, rosemary and honeycomb. She walked away with 21 points, which meant she was 5 points behind.
If I order a panna cotta at a restaurant and it comes set in the bowl, 9 times out of 10 it’s terrible. So I’m freaking out a bit, even tho in Billie I trust #MasterChefAu
— Georgina Swan 🎣 (@swandives) July 12, 2022
Round two was a pressure test set by none other than Heston Blumenthal. I was extremely distracted during this entire segment because there was this weird book that looked like it was out of Shrek 2 projected onto the floor with its pages being flipped through. How high-tech!
The book was in fact full of historical dishes that Heston had previously reimagined, which was the judges’ segue into the fact the girls would be recreating another ye olde dish: the humble taffety tart, which dates back to 1600.
Ladies and gentlemen, the Taffety Tart 😮 #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/0eZzOc63EJ
— MasterChef Australia (@masterchefau) July 12, 2022
It was a gorgeous little number filled with apples and caramelised puff pastry, which truly would have been the talk of the village in the Medieval era.
Billie and Sarah had FIVE GODDAMN HOURS to make this tart, which surely must be one of the nine levels of hell in Dante‘s Inferno. Gluttony, perhaps.
Alas, the girls got stuck into but it wasn’t a smooth ride. They both used different sugars and it turned out that Billie was using the wrong sugar, which meant she had to start again. Then less than 15 minutes to go, she decided to redo her crumble because it wasn’t dry or crispy enough. BRUH. When I tell you I was STRESSING.
Billie you’ve given the whole of Australia heart palpitations. #MasterChefAU
— Olinda (@xOlindax) July 12, 2022
Billie pretty much almost made that tart twice with the amount of re-work she did! #MasterChefAU
— 𝔻𝕒𝕫 🐯🐅 (@dcpchiu) July 12, 2022
In the end, it was a good thing Billie redid half her dessert because she bloody slayed it. Heston said the whole thing showed “real finesse” and Melissa Leong simply said her mind had been blown.
“The gel has a perfect amount of bitterness; you can pick up on every clear, distinct layer,” she said.
Sarah’s dessert also rocked but sadly, it wasn’t enough to save the day. TBH this was random because they barely had anything negative to say about it and Jock Zanfrillo said it was just as impressive as Heston’s in terms of appearance.
Wait, did they even have a criticism of Sarah’s dish? They raved about it and she didn’t get a single 10? #MasterChefAU pic.twitter.com/XkKgqm7sB2
— Jessie (@stinky_linke) July 12, 2022
Sarah scored 30 points for her taffety tart while Billie was awarded a stonking 37 points, which included a divine 10/10 from Melissa.
Congratulations, queens! And a huge round of applause for Billie, our latest MasterChef winner.
Now it’s time for me to have dinner because I’m starving after watching that.
