MasterChef Canada (season 6) facts for kids

The Top 18 were invited individually by the judges to the MasterChef kitchen in Toronto. They battled in heats according to the judge who selected them. First up was Alvin’s group, consisting of Alyssa, Cliff, Jamie, Josh, Kimberly, and Laurie, who needed to cook a signature dish using chicken. Cliff produced the best dish and received the first apron. Alyssa and Josh also received white aprons. The second group was Michael’s, consisting of Chanelle, Colin, Jenny, Marie, Steven and Tony, who all made dishes using beef. Marie failed to earn an apron, but the other five were judged to have done enough to progress to the next round, with Tony praised for producing the best beef dish of the group. Lastly, Claudio’s group, consisting of Andre, Cryssi, Jennifer, Lena, Mark and Rozin, were tasked with cooking shrimp. Rozin, Andre and Jennifer earned aprons for their outstanding dishes. Of the remaining three, the judges decided that Cryssi had also just done enough to progress, and she earned the last apron.

Mystery Box 1: The first Mystery Box featured an array of root vegetables. The judges decided that the three best dishes belonged to Jennifer, Cryssi and Jenny, and Jenny won.

Elimination Test 1: As the winner of the Mystery Box, Jenny was safe from elimination and was allowed to save two home cooks. She chose to save Cryssi and Jennifer. The other home cooks were tasked with cooking a dish using different proteins, with two cooks being sent home at the end. Jenny had the advantage of selecting the order in which they chose the proteins. Targeting Rozin, she left him to have the last pick; the cooks chose proteins in the following order: Tony picked Alaskan king crab, Colin chose salmon, Josh selected clams, Cliff picked duck legs, Andre chose pork shoulder, Steven selected ground beef, Chanelle selected octopus, and Alyssa chose turkey, leaving Rozin with leg of lamb. Tony and Chanelle, who both took risks by choosing a protein they rarely (or in Chanelle's case, never) cooked with, produced the best dishes and were named captains for their first team challenge. The worst four dishes were made by Colin, Steven, Alyssa, and Cliff. The judges were disappointed with Colin and Alyssa's dishes, but saved them for their perfectly cooked proteins. Both Cliff and Steven were sent home as a result.

Team Challenge 1: For their first team challenge, the Top 10 home cooks were tasked with cooking Caribbean dishes for 121 wedding guests. With the best dish from the last challenge, Tony was given the choice of picking the proteins or team members. He chose to pick team members, selecting Andre, Jenny, Alyssa and Cryssi, while Chanelle selected Jennifer, Rozin, Colin and was left with Josh. For the challenge, the Blue team cooked crab and shrimp for their appetizer and chicken for their entree, while the Red team prepared a red snapper appetizer and a beef tenderloin entree. In the end, the Red Team beat the Blue Team by a slim margin of 3 votes.

Pressure Test 1: Before the pressure test began, the judges gave all members of the Blue team the opportunity to choose one home cook to exempt from the pressure test. Because of his outstanding performance preparing the chicken entree, the team chose to save Josh. This left Chanelle, Rozin, Jennifer and Colin baking a sweet and a savoury cheesecake in 80 minutes. Jennifer’s ‘Everything Bagel’ and ‘A Walk in the Forest’ cheesecakes were deemed the best, sending them to safety. Colin’s savoury scallop ceviche cheesecake was disliked by the judges, but his strawberry cheesecake was praised, though underdone. Chanelle’s savoury goat cheese cheesecake was generally praised, but her matcha cheesecake had cracked and was raw in the center. Rozin was criticised for over ambitiously overreaching in his concepts for his savoury Stilton and sweet tahini-themed cheesecakes as they were sloppy and messy in presentations and under-baked. The judges decided to save Rozin and Chanelle, eliminating Colin.

Mystery Box 2: The Top 9 home cooks were greeted by their teenage photos underneath their mystery boxes. As Season 5 winner Beccy Stables made her return to the MasterChef kitchen, the home cooks were tasked to elevate their favorite dish from their teenage years. The best three dishes belonged to Jennifer, Rozin and Josh, and Josh won.

Elimination Test 2: As the winner of Mystery Box, Josh was safe from elimination. The theme of the elimination challenge was spices. The other home cooks were shown nine boxes containing three different spices, all of which they had to showcase in their dish. However, two of the nine boxes granted the home cook immunity. The remaining home cooks were asked to pick a box in random to find out what were inside. Alyssa and Cryssi picked the "Safe" boxes and were safe from elimination. This left Jenny with celery seed, cayenne pepper and fennel seed, Andre with caraway seed, cumin and savory, Rozin with rosemary leaves, lavender and white pepper, Chanelle with Chinese ginger, sage and turmeric, Jennifer with cloves, cinnamon and thyme, and Tony with cardamom, nutmeg and coriander seed. The two best dishes of the belonged to Jennifer and Andre, who became team captains for the following field team challenge). The worst two dishes belonged to Jenny and Tony. Jenny was frazzled and confused in the challenge, but the judges were disappointed that Tony had not shown range by making yet another Italian pasta dish, and Tony was sent home as a result.

Team Challenge 2: The Top 8 was tasked to prepare school lunches for 161 school kids for one of the biggest team challenges ever. With the best dishes from the last elimination challenge, Jennifer and Andre were appointed team captains for this challenge. Jennifer as the Red team captain chose Josh, Alyssa and Chanelle, while Andre, as the blue team captain, chose Jenny, Rozin and was left with Cryssi. The Red team won the challenge with 99 to 62 votes.

Pressure Test 2: Andre, Rozin, Jenny and Cryssi had only 20 minutes to replicate a plate of Valencian Fideuà, consisting of squid, shrimp, noodles, mussels, clams and saffron in a fight for survival in the competition, making this the shortest pressure test in MasterChef Canada's 6 season history. Andre and Cryssi both exceptionally nailed their dishes, with Andre's declared the cream of the crop, as he was sent to safety first. Cryssi's dish was near perfect with only a minor flaw noted. However, Jenny and Rozin’s dishes both had multiple issues. Despite flawlessly cooking his noodles to perfection, Rozin presented an incomplete dish that was missing multiple seafood elements and components, as he forgot what the dish looked like, and his raw squid tentacles were inedible. Jenny cut herself, and despite continuing with one hand, messed up her first batch of noodles during the cook by pouring the chicken stock in too early. Her dish was unseasoned and had noodles that were inconsistently cooked and soggy. In the end, the judges decided that Rozin’s dish was the worst and eliminated him.

Mystery Box 3: The home cooks learned whether taking a risk was worth the reward in this mystery box. There were two boxes: one clear box containing potato, squash, pork chop and maple syrup, and an opaque box containing unknown ingredients. The home cooks who chose the opaque box had a full hour to cook, but those who chose the clear box had to wait for the clock to tick down to 45 minutes. Andre and Josh chose the safe box. Alyssa, Jennifer, Cryssi, Jenny and Chanelle chose to take a risk with the secret box, which contained largely exotic ingredients including black cod, escarole, passion fruit and tamarind paste. In the end, the best dishes belonged to Chanelle, Josh and Cryssi, and Cryssi won.

Elimination Test 3: The theme of the elimination challenge was opulent and luxuriously extravagant East Asian ingredients selected by Alvin. Cryssi was not safe from elimination, but she had the advantage of assigning the ingredients to each home cook. She chose Wagyu beef for herself. Targeting Chanelle, Andre and Jennifer, she assigned uni to Andre, abalone to Chanelle, ebisu dai to Jennifer, black garlic to Josh Matsutake mushrooms to Jenny, and XO sauce to Alyssa. Jennifer made the best dish while Josh and Chanelle were also praised for their exceptional, knockout dishes, with Cryssi receiving solid reviews. Andre was harshly lambasted by Alvin for having very little sea urchin in his dish and not doing much to highlight and feature it, which he was supposed to. However, the judges deemed Jenny and Alyssa's dishes the worst two, asking both of them to take off their aprons, and the duo were eliminated as a result. However, the episode ended on a cliffhanger, as the judges announced that their time in the MasterChef kitchen was not quite over...

Jenny and Alyssa had to face Rozin and Tony as they were put through a series of three challenges involving knife skills in a redemption challenge.

Redemption Challenge Part 1: The four home cooks' skills in using a chef's knife were tested by having to julienne cut red onions, sweet peppers, zucchinis, carrots, and mangos to make an Asian rice noodle salad with Thai chilli vinaigrette in just 14 minutes. Jenny and Tony made near perfect dishes. Rozin's noodles stuck together but were presented nicely. Due to poor time management, Alyssa presented a salad that was missing various components, resulting in her elimination.

Redemption Challenge Part 2: The remaining three home cooks had to filet a Dover sole and use two of the fillets to make Sole meunière in just 8 minutes. All three cooks had issues with their fish - Tony's fillets were slightly underdone, Rozin's fillets were too light from his butter not being hot enough, and Jenny's fillets were uneven in size from leaving too much meat on the carcass, causing one to be overcooked. Jenny was eliminated in this round.

Redemption Challenge Part 3: Rozin and Tony battled head-to-head in French trimming a rack of lamb and cooking it to a perfect medium rare in only 22 minutes. While both home cooks' dishes were nearly even in taste, Rozin's lamb was a perfect medium rare, while Tony's lamb was slightly overcooked and had some sinew on the bone. Rozin emerged as the winner, earning his apron back, and thus a spot back in the competition.

Team Challenge 3: The Top 6 home cooks cooked in the annual Restaurant Takeover in Michael's Leña Restaurante. Josh and Cryssi were chosen as the team captains by the judges as they had never led a team challenge. Josh, as the Red Team captain, chose Jennifer and Chanelle, and Cryssi, as the Blue Team captain, chose Rozin and was left with Andre. They had to prepare two appetizers: a broken avocado salad and clam dish with chorizo, and two entrees: an Atlantic salmon dish and a roasted lamb sirloin dish. While both teams performed well in the appetizer round, they both struggled equally in the entree round due to a lack of communication and required assistance from Michael and Julie, his chef de cuisine. Returning to the MasterChef kitchen the next morning, the judges declared both teams losers, as they felt that neither team performed well enough to be awarded immunity from the pressure test - a first in MasterChef history.

Pressure Test 3: Both teams faced the pressure test, but the judges gave Josh and Cryssi, the captains, the chance to save one of their two teammates, but they were not allowed to save themselves as the judges felt they were both fully responsible for the lack of communication during the team challenge. Josh saved Jennifer and Cryssi saved Andre. The theme of the pressure test was breakfast, and Josh, Cryssi, Chanelle and Rozin had 65 minutes to replicate the judges' favorite breakfast dishes: Full English with English muffins for Michael, congee for Alvin, and bizcocho for Claudio. Cryssi produced the best breakfast trio and was saved, while Josh, Chanelle and Rozin were the bottom three. Josh produced a well executed Full English, but his congee was too thin and bland and his bizcocho was dry. Chanelle's congee was near perfect, but some of the components in her Full English were imperfect and her bizcocho was a disaster. Rozin fared worse with multiple issues in all three dishes as the blood sausage in his Full English exploded, his small bizcocho was overcooked and dry, and his congee had a bitter aftertaste due to an imbalanced use of spices. As a result, Rozin was eliminated once again.

Mystery Box 4: The Top 5 home cooks were faced with a giant mystery box where their loved ones were waiting inside: Jennifer's boyfriend, Cryssi's sister, Chanelle's husband, Josh's wife, and Andre's aunt. In the challenge, the home cooks' loved ones not only cooked alongside them, but in fact did most of the cooking in the hour. The home cooks were tasked with coaching them from the side and were only given 18 minutes to help them during the cook. They were tasked with making a fried chicken dish with biscuits, gravy and coleslaw. After tasting all the dishes, the judges decided that Andre and his aunt were the winners of the Mystery Box, earning him an advantage in the elimination challenge.

Elimination Test 4: The theme of the elimination challenge was tropical fruits. The Top 5 spun a wheel to determine the fruit they had to cook with and the type of dish they had to make (savoury or sweet). As his advantage, Andre did not need to spin the wheel and was allowed to choose any of the fruits and the kind of dish he made. He chose to make a savory dish using passion fruit. The remaining four cooks spun the wheel, resulting in Cryssi to making a sweet dish with sugar apple Josh making a savoury dish with tamarind Chanelle making a sweet dish using soursop, and Jennifer making a savoury dish with coconut. Andre produced the best dish, and Cryssi's sugar apple tart was also raved. Jennifer was criticised for overcooking their lobster, while Chanelle's dish was messy and the soursop was overpowered by other flavours. Josh was criticised for playing it too safe, having stayed well within his comfort zone, and lacking ambition in his dish. Josh and Chanelle were the bottom two, and Chanelle was eliminated.

Team Challenge 4: The final four home cooks arrived at the Canadian Canoe Museum and divided in pairs of 2 for a team challenge cook-off to honour Indigenous agriculture for a shot at immunity. Each team had to create a three course menu consisting of three dishes that honor the Three Sisters ingredients: corn in the appetizer, beans in the entree, and squash in the dessert. With the best winning dish from the last challenge, Andre was given the advantage choosing his teammate. Andre selected Jennifer, leaving Cryssi with Josh as the other team by default. Andre and Jennifer won the challenge, automatically advancing to the semifinals.

Pressure Test 4: As the losing team, Cryssi and Josh faced each other in a pressure test for the last spot in the semifinals. They were given the challenging task of replicating a tempered chocolate sphere dessert consisting of a pistachio genoise sponge cake and topped with bruléed figs, accompanied by a caramel sauce. Despite his initial nervousness in baking such a difficult dessert, Josh performed smoothly and produced a near perfect, well executed dish, although his pistachio cake was slightly dry. Cryssi miscalculated the timing of filling her mould with her tempered chocolate, which quickly solidified, only covering three quarters of the interior. Cryssi then had to create another one using a balloon, resulting in a lumpy and dull chocolate egg-shaped sphere. Despite her spot-on flavours, Cryssi was sent home and Josh advanced to the semifinals.

Mystery Box 5: The 3 semifinalists were excited when the judges introduced Olympic ice dancer and gold medalist Tessa Virtue to the judging panel as the special guest star. Tessa explained the theme of the last mystery box challenge of the season. Andre, Jennifer, and Josh were tasked with making a stunningly elevated, dramatic dish with the theme of “Fire and Ice” using molecular gastronomy to elevate their plating to artistically inventive and innovative heights. Andre produced the best dish and won the challenge.

Elimination Test 5: Andre did not directly advance to the finals and had cook alongside Jennifer and Josh in the elimination challenge, the theme of which was Canada’s top cheeses. The home cooks were tasked with creating a three-course menu using an assigned cheese. With his advantage, Andre was allowed to choose the cheese he wanted to work with and assign the other two cheeses to Jennifer and Josh. Andre selected grey owl ash-ripened goat cheese for himself, and gave the Avonlea clothbound cheddar cheese to Jennifer and tiger blue cheese to Josh. Jennifer made the best dishes and earned the first spot in the finale. With more issues in their dishes, the judges decided that Andre’s dishes showed more finesse than Josh's. Andre advanced to the finale and Josh was eliminated.

Jennifer and Andre faced off in a three-hour, three-course battle for the title of MasterChef Canada. As in the past two seasons, they had to work non-stop for three hours to prepare a three-course meal for the judges, spending one hour on each course, presenting the appetizer after the first hour, entree after the second, and dessert at the end of the third hour. For the appetizer, Andre served a Caribbean lobster run down with coconut-callaloo puree and boiled dumplings, while Jennifer served a fancy version of ants on a log with port-poached figs, celery brunoise, and blue cheese mousse. For the entree, Jennifer presented a braised lamb shank on hay-smoked oats with sour cherry glaze and a mint cotton candy "fleece" inspired by "Mary's Little Lamb", while Andre created a Caribbean-Korean fusion curried goat bo ssäm, with goat two ways, caramelized kimchi, mango salad, and gochujang sauce. For dessert, Andre served a deconstructed turon with Chinese five spice waffle, caramelized plantains, grapefruit soda snow, and Irish moss ice cream, while Jennifer served an elevated version of treat cereal with chocolate soil, puffed rice, sugar-cured egg yolk, marshmallow meringues, and tea-smoked milk. With both finalists demonstrating a strong sense of flavour, creativity and innovation in their dishes, the judges considered the overall story presented across the three courses and the finalists’ culinary journey throughout the competition. As a result, the judges named Jennifer the winner.