MasterChef 2021 Australia elimination: Nigella Lawson dials in to boot a contestant out – live blog

7.17am EDT 07:17

And that’s it! Thanks so much for following along in the first blog back for the 2021 season.

Feel free to send me an email some time through the week with what you’d like to see going forward! I love getting your messages and respond to everything I can – even if it’s just random gossip or declarations of love for contestants (those are the best kinds of emails actually).

Tomorrow night: it’s time to crack out that cookbook your aunty definitely gave you for Christmas. “Superstar week” continues with Yotam Ottolenghi.

I’ll see you back here next Sunday! x

Updated at 7.22am EDT

7.12am EDT 07:12

Yo Yo is eliminated

Jock starts with the good news: Brent the boilermaker has cake of the day! Old mate bloody did it.

“bUT i’M jUst a TrAdie” Photograph: Network Ten

Tom and Maja are also safe, as we knew they would be. It all comes down to Yo Yo and Conor’s cake mullet. And, in the end, Conor’s rhubarb saves him from elimination.

Yo Yo is the second contestant eliminated from the MasterChef kitchen. People are crying already!

🙁 Photograph: Network Ten

“My overall MasterChef experience was short, sharp and shiny,” she says – which is also an accurate description of Conor’s cake mullet.

Updated at 7.19am EDT

7.08am EDT 07:08

The judges are slowly prodding around Yo Yo’s pile of sugar slop. Melissa crunches down on a piece of cooked rhubarb like it’s a raw carrot. The meringue is underdone.

There is nothing good to say, so everyone sits in silence.

It’s probably a good thing Nigella has gone.

7.03am EDT 07:03

Time to taste: Yo Yo

Yo Yo is being very positive for someone with half a cake. This awful day was an opportunity to grow, she says. She simply loves to be challenged! Every misfortune is a gift!

This is very mature stuff from someone who is 19 years old (HOW IS SHE ONLY 19 YEARS OLD) and also definitely the kind of thing you script when you’re certain you’re going home.

7.02am EDT 07:02

Time to taste: Tom

Tom’s cake looks very similar to Nigella’s, if not a little too dark.

But it’s more complicated on the inside. The meringue, rhubarb and anglaise are all perfect, but the rhubarb juices have seeped down and collapsed part of the cake.

That sounds… very bad, but Jock says “it’s nothing in the scheme of things”. Ok!

7.00am EDT 07:00

Time to taste: Maja

Maja’s cake looks smooth and sophisticated. She’s calm and confident.

Unfortunately, it’s not all good news: the cake isn’t moist enough and Mel calls it “a very good attempt” – that thing you say when you definitely don’t rate something.

Another day, that might have mattered… But it’s really just nitpicking when you’re up against Conor’s mullet and Yo Yo’s cake which is suffering male pattern baldness.

6.59am EDT 06:59

Time to taste: Conor’s mullet

Conor has baked a mullet. “Cake mullet!” everyone yells, which sounds fun but is really just a jaunty way of saying you messed up.

I think this cake kicked a bag for the Doggies over the weekend?

The flavour of the rhubarb is great, but the cake itself is too doughy and hard. The meringue hasn’t been whipped enough either.

Mel says she thinks Conor really “exhibits everything about front of house”. Ie) not where chefs go.

Conor is in trouble.

6.56am EDT 06:56

The happy music is playing!

Andy says Brent has exceeded his expectation – after all, Brent’s a bloody tradie!! We were all expecting a bloody Four’n Twenty.

The sponge is light and fluffy, the rhubarb is holding its shape, and the creme anglaise isn’t too sweet. Brent the boilermaker will bake another day.

6.49am EDT 06:49

Time to taste: Brent

Brent’s cake is first up, and it looks good – but also a lot flatter than Nigella’s.

“I was really trying to get it up, but it wouldn’t do it,” he says.

Around Australia, 1 million dads are screaming “that’s what she said”.

6.46am EDT 06:46

TIME’S UP!!

Conor and Yo Yo are definitely on the bottom of this one.

Conor’s cake was wonky (“It’s quite dense, but it stands.”) and he piped on the meringue in lots of tiny blobs instead of teasing it out.

Yo Yo doesn’t have enough meringue to cover the outside of her cake. So that’s actually much worse.

6.42am EDT 06:42

Tom is going from strength to strength, still ignoring his many friends and colleagues offering him endless love and support.

Brent the boilermaker is trowelling on his meringue like he’s laying bricks. It’s like a bloody job site in there!! Phwoar. Too right.

Yeah, I’m just going to post this every time: