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MasterChef Junior Luca's Recap: The Judges Get "Whipped"!

On MasterChef Junior, there are just 10 junior homecooks left, and I am excited to see what the next challenge is because in the last episode, the judges nominated the three best dishes belonging to Kaylen, Alexander and Gavin.

Luca Manfe

Happy Friday!
On MasterChef Junior, there are just 10 junior homecooks left, and I am excited to see what the next challenge is because in the last episode, the judges nominated the three best dishes belonging to Kaylen, Alexander and Gavin. Since there can be just one real winner for every challenge, the three young homecooks with the best dishes in the last episode will compete in a small challenge to decide the winner of the advantage in the next challenge.
Alexander, Gavin and Kaylen will have to make whipped cream with just a whisk, a metal bowl, and heavy cream. They will all have to get the heavy cream to stiff peaks, which means when you pull away the whisk the cream is stiff and stands up. If the heavy cream is perfectly whipped you could actually turn the bowl upside down and the cream will not fall out.
The challenge starts and all the other kids are cheering on the three whippers. It looks like Sarah bet some money on Gavin because she is cheering him on like a possessed cheerleader on the night of the Super Bowl!!
Alexander is the first to yell "whipped" and Gavin and Kaylen have to stop. Now the judges will test to see if they all got to stiff peaks. I am sure we all thought that the judges would just walk around and check with a spoon or a whisk, right? Well, we were wrong. Chef Ramsay goes backstage and comes back with three small portable ladders. The three junior homecooks walk up the steps and one at a time tip their bowls of "whipped cream" over the judges' heads. I immediately start laughing because besides Alexander, I am pretty sure the other two do not have stiff peaks.
Well, ladies and gentlemen, get ready for the funniest moment in the history of any MasterChef show all over the world!
Of course Alexander has stiff peaks, so lucky Chef Graham Elliot is safe from a cream shower. Gavin came very close, but his cream was not whipped all the way and Mr. Joe Bastianich gets a nice whipped cream shower all over his shiny bald head. But the best is yet to come because Kaylen was not able to whip her cream to a decent consistency and 1, 2, 3 -- Chef Gordon Ramsay is hit by a flood of whipped cream on his head! He cannot resist and a little "bad" word comes out of his mouth that starts with "sh--", but he corrects himself quickly and all we hear is, "SUGAR! SUGAR! SUGAR!"
I am telling you I have never laughed so hard watching an episode of MasterChef. This was even funnier than when I was chasing that turkey around in the pantry and thought it was a peacock. I seriously could not stop laughing. 
Alexander won this fun challenge and gets a huge advantage for the elimination test. The young cooks will be divided in five teams of two, and Alexander will decide the teams. I had the same advantage in my MasterChef season. We were down to seven people, and I got to pick the teams that would compete in a tag-team challenge to make an amazing sushi plate.
We find out the teams will have to reproduce Gordon Ramsay's Beef Wellington. This is a very complex dish that I have made in my kitchen a few times, but it's very hard to make in a short amount of time. Plus, being a tag-team challenge makes it so much harder because you are not working on the dish at the same time, and your partner can either make or break you.
In the sushi challenge I was safe from elimination, but in this case Alexander will be cooking so he has the big advantage to choose his partner and build a real dream team. I would have picked Dara because I think she is the most talented out of the group, but Big Al goes for Troy. In picking the teams, Alexander showed again how smart he is, smarter than me for sure. He teams Dara with the youngest of the group Sarah, Roen with Jewels, Sofia with Gavin and Jack with Kaylen.
It is very important to sear the filet mignon very heavily and then coat it with mustard when it is still piping hot so the filet will absorb the mustard while it is cooling down -- as Alexander suggested to Troy, but Troy thinks he knows better and he does not coat it.
Jack surprised me; he shows a lot of leadership skills and tries to direct Kaylen as much as he can. Alexander's strategy may start to work because Sarah and Dara have some communication problems because Sarah tries to give Dara directions and advice, but Dara has the "I am not taking orders from this little girl four years younger then me" attitude.
Troy, Alexander, Sarah, Dara, Gavin and Sofia all make a perfect beef wellington. The other two teams are in trouble. Jack and Kaylen have a soggy puff pastry at the bottom, the beef is over cooked and the broccolini are mushy. Even if Roen and Jewels' beef wellington looks delicious and is perfectly cooked, it hides some big, big problems - it's super salty. Not only did they not coat the meat when it was hot, so there is a layer of raw mustard, but Jewels heavily salted the filet. There is nothing worse than a salty piece of meat. It's inedible, and unfortunately Roen and Jewels have to say goodbye to their MasterChef dreams.
As much I think they are both very talented homecooks, it doesn't seem right that Roen had to go home because it's not his fault if Jewels used too much salt, but when the team loses, the whole team goes down.
Good luck, guys! You did great! I am very proud of you! I will see you in New York!
Did you like this episode? How fun was that whipped cream challenge? When will you be trying to re-create Chef Ramsay's famous beef wellington?
Don't forget to tune in for an all-new MasterChef Junior episode next Friday at 8/7c on Fox.
Grazie for reading and see you next time!
Ciao!
Luca
Follow me on twitter @MC4Luca and visit my website at www.lucamanfe.com