There’s always Only Fans for that.

OK, Let’s Go!

Fruit and Far Between

The Feng Shui-ing of the Celebrity MasterChef format means the Invention Test is now in this episode and apparently we’ve lost the cloches in the divorce, so the boxes are back and everyone gets the same set of starting ingredients

which I think I prefer? It never felt very fair when one person could be bamboozled with a bowl of chicken livers while the person next to them had the completely undemanding task of turning apples into a crumble. Not that any of this would have changed anything for Joe Pasquale who has never met anything he can’t shove inside a pie

this week’s Mystery Boxes contained a selection of fruit for Jay McGuiness to ponder like he was about to unravel the great mysteries of the universe

they did also have access to the full larder, or in the case of Joe Pasquale, some emergency dry cleaning

and for having made the best Gnocchi in Giorgio’s Masterclass in the previous episode, Shakira was getting an actual bona fide advantage in the form of an extra 10 minutes and first access to the larder: making a beeline for the Disaronno

as well as the cake ingredients

she might want to try Emily’s drawer?

her plan was an Orange and Lemon Madeira Cake with a Raspberry Coulis and Custard, the one positive thing the UK has going for it right now

personally I stay for the thrill of the ever increasing existential dread.
Unfortunately for Shakira, her custard was making Giorgio at least consider running back to Lombardy

but her cake was really, really good!

granted, she had a recipe

I’ve always suspected that at least in the celebrity versions of the invention tests they get recipes for things like pastries, basic cake mixes, custards and sauces because without it I’m not sure anything in a Celebrity MasterChef Invention Test would ever be edible. All they really have to worry about is flavour – my mind immediately goes to Gemma Collins upending a bottle of Cointreau into a curry

the flavour combinations this time were much more sane. Kind of, I shall hold Joe’s apple and banana combination at a safe arm’s length

he says it was apple and banana in the pie but it thudded onto his plate like he’d baked a chisel into it to help someone break out of prison

I don’t think you really have to bother with the chisel though, you could knock a couple of guards out with this absolute behemoth

I truly hope Joe Pasquale never stops his parade of the most god-ugly pies you could conceive because every time Giorgio has to croak out “Another pie?” like the General Election Lady an angel gets its wings

but what are the chances of Joe getting to make three pies in only 2 episodes? At least he’s on an upward pie trajectory

granted, I think it’s mostly because he didn’t butcher his hands this time as they baby-proofed his thumbs

Given that fruit had to be central to the construction of the dish, desserts were a popular choice. However, Emily was bucking the trend and grabbing that whole chicken with both hands

as well as a pineapple

you put that pineapple down, it’s Grace’s emotional support pineapple and the only thing keeping her safe from Joe Pasquale’s Emotional Pie-ssault

Emily’s plan for the chicken was to try and recreate a Chinese Orange Chicken, a task that she did incredibly well at!

it was by far and away the riskiest dish of the challenge and she did a really great job of managing the sweetness as well as creating the simultaneously crispy and sticky texture. The judges were particularly impressed with her butchery of the chicken as it’s not every day that a chicken gets treated with dignity and respect in the Celebrity MasterChef kitchen.

While Emily soared to lofty heights, Jason Mohammad was in the trenches of the IDGAF Wars as he spent an entire hour making 2 pancakes and a cereal chaser to Shakira’s four-in-one shot of amaretto

“but it was a fruit challenge?” I hear you ask. Well yeah, there’s a single strawberry on top of the pancake, how much more fruit could you possibly want?

I refuse to talk about this anymore than I have to. You get 1 more chance before I have Joe Pasquale go all Mrs. Lovett on you, J-Mo.

Lastly we have Jay McGuiness who was probably going the most expected route of all with the inaugural Slightly Too Small Celebrity Cheesecake of the series

and while Shakira tried to find those pesky eggs that Emily had hidden, Jay had worked on the track listing for his upcoming solo project “Ok, Let’s Go!”

I’m particularly excited for Biscuits (Or Make) – I do deeply enjoy his momentary optimism that he would actually make the biscuits he’d use for the… can we say Buttery Biscuit Base anymore? Where is the cultural zeitgeist on that one? It feels a bit soon. I mean it doesn’t really matter in this case because Jay had barely used any butter at all

but the cheesecake was nice, there was however the slight issue of its separation anxiety

and Giorgio delivering “So you served me the cake with the base of the tin?” in the exact intonation of the wedding scene from The Godfather immediately goes in the Top 10 Moments of the series for me

An Unofficial Fruit Invention test Dish Ranking:
1. Orange you Glad You Took The Chicken?
2. A Second Joe Pasquale Pie Has Hit The MasterChef Kitchen
3. Can’t Be Madeira About It
4. It’s An Emotional Sort Cake Tin Base
5. It’s A Fruit Challenge, You’ve Gotta Cook The Fruit

Beauty Is In The Pie of the Beholder

Their last chance to prove they were worth a pace in the Quarterfinal was a challenge called “Who’s Coming To Dinner?” which sounds like a cancelled ITV gameshow. And speaking of cancelled ITV gameshows, the mystery celebrity guest who has to host this round because they’re too expensive to book as a contestant, was Paddy McGuinness

and all of Joe Pasquale’s Christmases had come at once as all Paddy wanted them to do was make the best pie they could

and with a frequency of pies under his belt akin to the number of Greggs within 100 metres in Sheffield, Joe was Pie-nemy Numero Uno

the only thing he had to do was plate up a pie that didn’t look like it was the stunt double for John Hurt in The Elephant Man, a task that is harder for Joe Pasquale than it probably should be. His solution to this was to use a bigger plate in the hope that it would make the pie look smaller

a tactic that may have actually worked

it is also a legitimately good looking pie and very much the Cinderella to the ugly step-sisters that came before it – and the addition of the cauliflower cheese was definitely a step up from the artfully arranged fig and cherry that flanked the last one like ears with an infected piercing

the third instalment of Joe Pasquale’s Pie Hat Trick was Chicken and Chorizo with a Sherry Gravy that he was going to insistently call Pie Custard until he wore Giorgio down enough to do the same

between this and Shakira asking him if he’s ever watched Ratatouille, Giorgio was like a single dad of 2 being baptised by fire

This single frame has the exact same energy as when, halfway through watching the first Lord of the Rings films, I turned to my dad and asked him “Did you wear gumboots in the army?” (he has never answered the question.)
It’s been two episodes and the light has already left Giorgio’s eyes. I hope they’ve locked him into a three year minimum contract.
The rat driving Shakira’s impulses, has been doomscrolling TikTok for the last 48 hours

and when not watching AI brainrot like I Married The Secret Cherry Queen and Got The Banana Prince Pregnant (is Mpreg fiction not sacred anymore? Must AI take EVERYTHING?) they’d stumbled across a recipe for a Peach and Burrata Pie

which was also coming with a basil cream – the whole thing makes my brain do dial-up modem noises and by the sound of things, Giorgio’s internal floppy disc drive was on fire too

it defies the menu spectrum, it is Chef’s Special: Other. But they all seemed to really like it. However it is also the sort of dish that sounds so chef-y and slightly pretentious that it almost compels you to have to like it even if it is the incomprehensible love child of a fruit salad and a pizza.
The rest of the pies were all very classic and easier to classify amongst pie taxonomy. Savoury pies were the popular choice with Emily once again veering away from the crowd with her Cherry and Peach Lattice Pie

there was meant to be an accompanying Vanilla Bean Ice Cream but it hadn’t set in time

so instead there was a second jug of Pie Custard for Giorgio to have to contend with

someone please just make him a bowl of cacio e pepe, it’s all he wants!

The only person really giving Joe a run for his role of Sheriff in this one two three pie town was Jason

who had made a very traditional Welsh Lamb and Leek Pie

so in order to decide who is now the head honcho of the wild west of pies, we have to go have a shoot out in the car park. It’s the only way, that’s how pie democracy works.

Lastly we have Jay McGuiness who was making a mushroom pie and I imagine the production team had to go have a crisis meeting in the back room because OH NO, THE HOT ONE IS THE WORST ONE!

they did like his filling but ultimately the pastry was overly crumbly and a little on the sandy side

and unfortunately you can’t come back from a sandy pie.

An Unofficial Paddy McGuinness Pie Ranking:
1. Nothing But Respect For MY Pie Sheriff
2. Jason “Pie-lly The Kid” Mohammad
3. Shakira Khan’s Defiance Of The Menu Trinary
4. Better Lattice Than Never
5. There’s Not Mushroom In This Town For Fungus

They had to eliminate someone and while I’d have had Jason out that door for The Pancake Incident alone – he did nothing to the fruit! He did make a pretty solidly redemptive pie and so sadly Jay McGuiness is the first to fall

when the cast was announce I genuinely thought he was going to be a ringer or the final lol. I guess not all boy bands do ‘ave ’em.