Bridgerton could never be this sexy.

Don’t forget to sun your babkas.

Growing Jane

Kicking off the Semi-finals is a mass catering challenge, with the contestants split into two teams to cater a celebration for what would be Jane Austen’s 250th birthday at Chawton House

the guests being the volunteers and members of the local Jane Austen Society, who were all coming in their best regency dress

and this woman has a perfect Jemima Puddle Duck costume for Beatrix Potter’s 140th birthday next year

and if you were coming to this gathering expecting to find your Mr. Darcy, don’t get your hopes up. The average age of the room is about 67 – brought down significantly due to the actual baby present

As for the teams, the Red Team was made up of Claire, Munopa, Sophie and Harry

Leaving the Blue Team as Olivia, Sam, Hazel and Henry – the latter of which was elected as team leader because everyone quite literally had to look up to him anyway

he may have been the lighthouse, but it was Hazel who would have to be the foghorn that tried to steer the dessert away from crashing upon the rocks of this random doughnut

I don’t know why they were serving a doughnut – most of my note taking during Sam having the worst time managing the workload for his dessert is “WHY. IS. THERE. A. DOUGHNUT?”. But I’m getting ahead of myself.

Over on the Red Team, Harry was elected team leader, with his duties mostly being to do drive by check-ins while barely listening to a response <3

and then slowly uncovering a series of disasters left behind by his teammates like someone finding the chaos wrought by the Yule Lads

Claire was only sacrificing 5% of her fig chutney in the hopes the ghost of Jane Austen would grant her a boon of 4 cauliflower leaves

the general theme of this challenge was that Claire was the only one really enjoying the moment – having a grand old time writing her punny Jane Austen themed menu in the sunshine

juxtaposed absolutely magnificently with Olivia having the worst time of her life as Sam, relieved from his duties of spawning the completely unnecessary doughnut, tried to explain to her how to spell “creme”

she had IMMEDIATELY leapt upon doing the vegetarian option which only required 10 portions, meaning she had the perfect opportunity to, for the third time in three episodes, make ravioli

this still meant she had to make 60 ravioli as well as an Asparagus Puree and Parmesan Tuiles. Her Tuiles did get a little caught, so needed to be redone and in order to let her concentrate on her ravioli, Henry stepped in to help her. She looked fine with losing custody of her tuiles

oh it’s about to get very Kramer vs. Kramer in that catering tent.

In the end, despite not having time to make her pasta pretty because Olivia still has a grudge against the entire conceit of this show (How dare they give us time limits? <3)

even if it was ugly British regency pasta (Italy does not claim it), it all got made and was greatly complimented by everyone

this man just liked the cheese

good for you, sir.

Naturally, Sophie had fallen into the roll of creating the ahistorical vegetarian dish

if you’re willing to do your little quadrilles, you can eat Claire’s pork

I feel I may need to clarify that this is a joke.
For her vegetarian option, Sophie had opted for a Mushroom Pie and Mash

it’s a pretty impressively made pie and everyone was raving about the filling and the red wine sauce that was made as an accompaniment.

The teams didn’t really have a great deal of say in what they got to cook with the Red Team being handed 8 lumps of pork

and the blue team being left to turn just 3 trout into 40 portions – luckily Hazel seems to be a direct descendent of Jesus himself (The Feeding Of The Multitude comes up alarmingly often on this blog and maybe I should unpack that)

but before she can be used to destroy The Vatican in a Dan Brown novel, she had to pan-fry all 40 portions of the trout as well as making a Saffron Veloute while Henry made the Trout and Leek Croquettes

it’s a very nice dish and certainly feels a little more luxurious than the roast pork. But you know… it’s just no Mansfield Pork

it was extremely well cooked and Claire was deservedly proud of it, so much so that she dubbed herself with this incredibly ill-advised monicker

at least she knows who the queen is

👑

This left Munopa and Sam on their teams desserts and having two extremely different experiences – probably because Munopa hadn’t decided to throw a random doughnut onto the plate. Instead she focused entirely on making Brioche dough and tending to her free-range blackberry compote

don’t worry babe, Henry’s distracting the flies

and they ate worse than the occasional moth in the Regency Period

uuuuh, sorry. What’s that on the menu being served with the lobster?

so while Olivia runs and hides from the cannibalistic Jane Austen Society that has lured and trapped her on the grounds of Chawton House, Munopa served a Babka

I’m so impressed with this? Just the fact she had this recipe ready to go and executed it so well is really damn admirable, and it’s also not something we’ve seen in a catering challenge before. I thought that might count for more a little later.

Meanwhile Sam was struggling to upscale his pastry experience

and eventually everyone had to be roped into help bring his Gooseberry Frangipane Tarts and Extraneous Doughnut into existence – although he did still have to deal with people asking him what they should be doing with *his* dish

I want an 8 part investigative podcast about how Sam ended up doing the dessert despite seeming the least equipped to do so and more importantly WHY IS THERE A DOUGHNUT?

the dessert did go down very well – the tart was obviously still a little too liquid. But I just do not understand the singular doughnut and I really want to understand the singular doughnut.

A Mass Catering Performance Ranking:
1. Princess Pork
2. The Free-range Blackberry Compote Farmer
3. Hazel’s Miracle Working
4. Flash Harry’s Drive-by Leadership
5. There’s No Such Things As A Regency Vegetarian
6. What? There’s No Italian Here.
7. Henry, Explain The Doughnut
8. Sam’s No Good Very Bad Day In The Tent

Ready Layer One

In order to decide which two contestants would be eliminated this episode, they were having to cook a dish that showcased either layers or swirls in an hour and 45 minutes. A brief that very much paints Olivia into an Aubergine Parmigiana corner because no self-respecting Italian spends anything less than 5 hours making a lasagne

and remember, guys, it’s her grandmother’s recipe so one bad word and it’s Kill Mode: Activation

TAKE THE SHOT OLIVIA, TAKE THE SHOT!

It was not Olivia’s best creation in the competition and probably far too simple to whip out at such a crucial stage too. But I do really appreciate that Olivia isn’t shy about sharing how disappointed she is

yes, she’s intense and not subtle at all about how good she thinks she is (and she is a very good cook) but personally I find that almost quite refreshing – I’m a bit bored of the Humility and Grace era of reality TV. I want you all to be boasting and prideful, you deserve it. Declare yourselves the Pasta Queen, Pork Princess and Marquess of Mille Feuilles

Sophie’s Baklava Mille Feuille sounded amazing and looked absolutely immaculate. My favourite bit is that while it’s an obviously layered dish, John had to also be really excited by the swirls

unsurprisingly, nobody was really embracing swirls, save for Hazel’s vegetable tart and even then it’s mostly just layered horizontally

the judges were very complimentary of it, save for the soggy pastry, but I just can’t imagine it tasting of very much? I’ve seen it a million times on social media and not once have I ever thought the effort of creating it is worth the pay off and I think she’s lucky that Munopa served up this piece of back alley victorian surgery masquerading as a Beef Wellington

it’s a real shame too, both because the beef and pastry were perfectly cooked and because I thought she’d lost her mind in the fun way when I saw she was making a bright green pancake

Instead, she’d lost her mind in the sad way with the Biltong Sauce that clogged your arteries if you looked at it for too long because it was laced with an entire person’s worth of bone marrow

and yet, still somehow not as upsetting to me as Harry’s game terrine that looked like one of those tinned roast dinners

it was certainly layered though and I do think it sounded lovely – the perfect tin can proportions are really throwing me off. He also had an elaborate story about meeting a gamekeeper who couldn’t sell his pheasants so Harry took them off his hands and then everyone clapped

and while Harry spun tales of the struggling countryside, Henry was explaining the plot of Shrek

and thus his Blooming Onion Bhaji was born, however the main layered component was of course his Paneer and Saag Aloo Pie

that blooming onion bhaji sounded amazing and the layers on that pie are phenomenally well done – slightly sceptical of how cooked it all is, but what’s a bit of a fudged judging between blog faves?
Sam had also gone for a pie, choosing a French and Thai fusion Pithivier, filled with layered pork mince and duck leg served in a Pineapple Red Curry Sauce

that pastry is absolutely gorgeous – just the most perfect colour and texture. He really redeemed himself for the slog that was his earlier efforts at shortcrust.

Lastly we have Claire who was doing a dessert and going slightly bonkers with a Christmas Pudding Trifle – the intention being to serve it free-standing like a patisserie dessert. This didn’t quite manage to come to fruition with the free-standing trifle looking like a snowman that has about 3 more days until it completely turns to slush

but she did have the forethought to put a backup trifle in its natural habitat – which might honestly have been the smartest play anyone has ever done in the MasterChef kitchen

much like your 5 years of carefully annotated notes about British reality TV – ALWAYS 👏 BACK 👏 UP 👏 YOUR 👏 TRIFLE 👏 – my computer is basically the Library of Alexandria if the Ptolemaic Dynasty had cared at all for television.

A Layered or Swirled Dish Ranking:
1. Sam’s Pastry Redemption
2. So then it turns out that Donkey and the Dragon Fu[REDACTED]
3. Sophie, The Marquess of Mille Feuilles
4. Harry, The Patron Saint of Pheasants
5. Claire’s Designated Driver Required Trifle
6. The Italian Killbot
7. Vegetable Shavings Are Barely Food
8. The Worst Thing To Happen To Biltong Since The Tesco Snack Aisle

In the firing line were Olivia, Munopa and Hazel. It’s difficult, I keep going back and forward on how this should’ve played out. I really didn’t like Hazel’s tart and thought it was all style and no suspense while I was so impressed with Munopa’s Babka in the prior challenge. But… woof, that Biltong Sauce just sank her like a stone

she’s so bloody talented at such a young age, I have no doubt she’ll go far and she’ll show up somewhere doing incredible things in a few years.

And then we have Olivia who just played it too simple

and if I’m honest, it probably was her time to go. She’s not really shown much interest in stretching herself beyond what she usually makes. She does amazing Italian food and that’s all she wanted to do – someone probably should’ve said *something* after the third ravioli in three episodes. However, she has been an amazing personality – when everyone is writing their lists of The Best TV Characters of 2025, I need them all to include Olivia in the top three AT LEAST. Nothing but respect for my Pasta Queen.