Claire and the Canadian Postal Service are mortal enemies.

These recaps were made of mushrooms the whole time!

For what feels like the first time in a couple of series, it did feel like we were coming into the final with everyone having a pretty equal chance of winning with Harry’s ability to tell fish apart by vibe alone, Sophie being able to bend mushrooms to her will and Claire, while not necessarily capable of performing culinary paranormal activity, can just make anything, shrug and say “it’s Danish!” and nobody can question her

I of course did have my favourite and so much of this final did feel like I was watching the wheels coming off of the mushroomy clown car as Sophie was cancelled and replaced by Eastern Europe’s favourite cat and mouse team, Worker and Parasite

Sophie’s entire menu theme was “Mushrooms, I think they’re pretty neat!” and she very much peaked with her starter of a Pulled Mushroom Croquette with a Confit Leek and Black Garlic and Truffle Mayonnaise

it’s a great dish – the flavours sound incredible and that confit leek looks like absolute perfect. I think she could’ve done a couple more croquettes for each portion but being too small would continue to be an issue for Sophie when it came to her main course of Hen of the Wood Mushrooms with Tempura Enoki Mushrooms

it’s just kind of a nothing plate of food, especially as a main course. Sure there’s the Shallot-stuffed with Spelt but honestly, it needed a full on risotto to go with it. She had cooked the mushrooms perfectly but… Nothing about this really speaks to the creativity and ingenuity of Sophie’s previous dishes. I began to wonder if it was a deliberate flubbing like the finalists on Project Runway do from time to time because the winner owes a percentage of their earnings, IN PERPETUITY, to the Weinstein Company (it is genuinely not worth winning that show lol). However, Sophie was putting *so much* effort into her dessert, which is surprising because she’s on record as not really doing desserts. We’ve had mushroom desserts on the show before, a pair of Porcini Mushroom Tiramisus made by two contestants on the same series of MasterChef: The Professionals

however, Sophie was not actually using mushrooms in her dessert and was planning on making a mushroom-shaped Black Forest-inspired dessert. And nothing about this dish went smoothly, with Sophie needing an emergency intervention from Anna lest her mirror glaze melt her entire dessert into a puddle

I genuinely liked that Anna did step in – I hope her role as a judge is more mentor-y, I think it would add more dimension to the show rather than John and Gregg kind of just listing textures, flavours and vibes at a contestant.
The dessert very much did not go Sophie’s way and you could tell she was hating every minute of being filmed hanging out in the Cryptid Freezer Nook opening the fridge to check if the mousse had set yet (they hadn’t)

and with seconds to go she was having to plaster her mushroom in her mirror glaze like a cowboy plasterer while Anna burst into frame begging her be more careful like she’s Clippy asking if you want help with copying and pasting text

and ultimately, while the dessert does look more like a mushroom than it probably deserved to

it does very much look like it was dragged into existence by a beleaguered woman being followed around by a camera crew and Anna Haugh pulling this face at all times

her mousse was actually good though, they really liked the texture and consistency that she’d managed to get into it. However, it’s probably just a bit too much of a gimmick. And also completely outclassed by Harry’s own illusory scented candle apple dessert

Harry completely mopped this final and it became very obvious that he’d win while Sophie ran around with Anna Haugh giving her breathing instructions and Claire opening an oven to a waft of smoke

while all we saw of Harry towards the end was Anna looking admiringly at him while he made his apple like the Evil Queen making the poisoned apple for Snow White

and Harry’s Starter and Main Course were equally as well executed, with his starter being a reinterpretation of a Prawn Cocktail as a Prawn Sausage

I can’t fully condone the prawn tube but I understand it and think he did a really great job of doing a reinterpretation while not completely losing sight of the original concept. I was worried he was going to shove that sausage into a champagne flute though

he’s perfected the Sunday Brunch artform of talking in ambiguous tense, he’d get on like a house on fire with Tim and Simon’s dad-doing-a-fry-up energy.
My biggest criticism of Harry’s menu was that his main course possibly felt a little bit too similar to his starter, with it being another fish dish (fair, given he is a fishmonger) but the Brill wrapped in Courgette with Braised Fennel and a Burnt Leek Sauce just feels like it achieves the same things his starter does

the little potato croissants are adorable though and he probably deserved to win for that whimsical nonsense alone. I think maybe pan-frying rather than poaching the fish, as the Prawn Sausage had been, would’ve shown more variety of skill. But watching him fillet that Brill with the same ease as him throwing the curtains wide like a Disney princess was genuinely impressively artful

I don’t think anyone can deny that Harry played an absolute blinder in this finale.

Lastly we have Claire who was starting her menu off with a Mackerel Pate and Beetroot dish inspired largely by gardening and growing beetroot with her dad

it leaves me slightly cold as a dish, I don’t think I’d ever order it and it feels like something that would start a corporate three course menu. I did like that she’d tried to incorporate the crusting technique she’d learned in Athens from Panagiotis Giakalis. However, it hadn’t really crisped up and I wonder if it ever would have when put on something as wet as a paté

but you can’t really go wrong with Beetroot and Mackerel as a flavour combination, and her Main Course of Chicken and Mushrooms was as much of a fail-safe

much like Sophie I think there’s something and Claire was possibly a little bit blinded by the theme of her mushrooms being symbolic of her feminist independence o realise it’s not a substantial enough plate of off

I think the dish could’ve possibly used a fondant potato – but I also fully understand wanting to keep it a little simple and manageable given it’s the final, which is probably why Sophie wasn’t trying to concoct a vegan rib-eye steak out of 3 ceps, a handful of dirt from Stonehenge and a willingly given sneeze.

Claire was ending her menu on a really strong note, her Dark Chocolate Torte looks absolutely beautiful

I do wish the peanut on top had had something done to it – a crushed up brittle perhaps? I think they look a little bit pedestrian as Just Peanuts™. But of all the dishes in this round, this dessert with the Peanut Butter and Orange Ice Cream did feel like the biggest swing and most inventive. And it really did pay off for her, it wasn’t quite enough to forgive the uncrustable crust on her starter and the Mushroom and Sage Sabayon on a her main course being more of a Mushroom and Sage Pseudo-Scrambled Egg

I still think Harry’s Burnt Leek Sauce was the bigger textural nightmare

but apparently it looking like a blob-like horror monster that’s learned to navigate the air vents is entirely intentional. And I’m sure some of the congealing factor is to blame on the filming time. I still find it horrifying that the judges have to eat most of these dishes completely ice cold.

A Final Menu Dish Ranking:
1. Harry’s Fish in Blankets
2. Harry’s Defluted Prawn Cocktail
3. Claire’s PB&OJ Torte
4. Goose Creek’s Carnival Apple Jar Candle
5. Sophie Can Have 1 Compliment As a Treat
6. Claire’s Chicken and Feminist Mushrooms
7. Claire’s Uncrustable Mackerel Brown
8. Sophie’s Plate of 3 Canapés
9. Sophie’s Death by Themeing

It was a pretty decisive result – both Sophie and Claire had issues with their dishes that ranged in severity from THE ENTIRE CONCEPT to a little timing error and while I was rooting for them mostly, by the time Harry had paled to a shade of translucent ivory because he realised how well this was going for him during the judging

I was fully on his side and good for him, he’s a thoroughly likeable man and I really can’t argue with him getting the trophy

I do once again have to shout at the show for IMMEDIATELY bussing Sophie and Claire out the room so Harry has to celebrate with just John and Anna

it’s such a weird move EVERY TIME, I don’t understand it! it makes me so mad!
The nice thing about MasterChef is that Claire and Sophie as runners up will be just as well set for a newfound culinary career – I have no doubt that Sophie will become a name within Plant-based cookery scene and we’ll see more of her and I look forward to seeing what Claire does and where her interest in food goes – there’s just something very special about her.

Overall – the circumstances of the series were tragic and wildly mishandled by those in control (at the very least you could’ve edited Gregg out of the best bits montage, lads.) But I’m glad this extraordinarily talented bunch of people got the chance to be recognised for the talents. I’m hopeful the show changes for the better with the next series – it’s a perfect opportunity to implement a bit of a format change and refresh. I am once again a girl standing before a behemoth of a franchise, simply begging them to do more invention tests and have them be more restricted.