MasterChef United Tastes of America: Let Them (Stress) Eat Cake!
Oh, there is plenty to celebrate in the Gordon Ramsay universe.
It was a milestone hour for the series with MasterChef Season 13 Episode 9, which served as the 250th episode of this long-running series, and no one can say they didn’t celebrate it in style.
One of the best (and maybe worst for some of our home cooks) ways of commemorating the occasion is with cake; there were so many different cakes to choose from here.
But not only was it the 250th episode of the series, but we got the exciting news that Masterchef is renewed for another season! And with that, heading into the hour would be a good time unless your favorite contestant went home.
Let ‘Em Bake Cake
We already caught a glimpse of the sparkler 250 cake situation with the judges celebrating during our Masterchef sneak peek.
But nothing topped seeing the smorgasbord of cases from every region looking positively delicious on the stands.
The downside to this display was that they didn’t delve a bit into the history of the cakes and which regions are known for which cakes.
Some are self-explanatory, like a Boston Creme Pie cake or Key Lime Pie (which isn’t a cake, so what gives?), but which region is known for Banana Split cake?
Who has dibs on Red Velvet and German Chocolate? What the hell is a Marionberry cake? Inquiring minds want to know these things!
Giving the contestants cakes to bake was the most fitting for the occasion and the most challenging task they’ve had all season. With 90 minutes to not only bake a cake, they had to figure out all the proper ingredients but also replicate the sample cake.
Who has those types of piping skills? It felt like sabotage right out of the gate!
But there were no complaints here as this girl has a sweet tooth, and watching the contestants create masterpieces and utter failures that I wanted to absolutely devour made for a great hour!
Kennedy’s Competitive Streak Rages On
After winning the challenge during Masterchef Season 13 Episode 8, Kennedy had the honor of assigning a cake to everyone, and she was as strategic as it gets.
She showed the Northeast a little mercy since Nina and Brynn were the only ones remaining, giving them Red Velvet and German Chocolate Cake.
And, naturally, she looked out for the West as best as she could, directing all her energy to the South, who hadn’t lost anyone yet, and the Midwest.
And that was a smart move, as they are the ones to beat these days.
Her precision was on point, focusing on Wayne and Kyle, as they’ve been the frontrunners of the bunch.
Giving Wayne that 9-Layer cake was an act of violence! The only thing better than her setting him up for failure like that was that he could pull it off!
Kennedy is one to be reckoned with, which showed by her choices. It wouldn’t be surprising if she ended up in the final two at this rate.
Sugar Rush!
The cake choices were interesting as some were incredibly easy and traditional, while others were a complex mess.
Jennifer, our Real Housewife of Masterchef, has been going strong in this competition and probably could’ve gotten something more challenging.
She’s one of the few bakers out of the bunch, and we know she can get her Bree Van De Camp on when she wants to, so she did well during this one.
She got a Banana Split cake, which I did not think was popular, but what do I know? The execution was impressive as it was nearly a replica of the one they provided.
Keeping up with our complaints about people falling into the background, it looked like Charles got a coconut cake, a personal fave, but we didn’t spend any time with him, so it was hard to tell whether it was good or bad.
Sadly, I couldn’t even tell you what Reagan had as we barely got to see her or her cake. And the same goes for Sav, who at least appeared to know what she was doing.
Honestly, nearly the entire South had fantastic cakes. The only crummy one was Kendal with the Boston Creme Pie. But it’s unsurprising since he’s clarified that baking isn’t his thing.
Lizzie got a Marionberry cake, which was also something I was unfamiliar with, while Kyle got a Lemon Meyer cake.
And MD got a Key Lime Pie, while Kolby got an Apple Stack cake that definitely looked like something I’d be adding to my “To Try” list.
Although we barely saw James, he apparently made an Ooey Gooey Butter cake, which sounds scrumptious.
There were more than a few interesting options; the pity is that we didn’t get to see more of them.
Cake Kings and Queens
The frontrunners for this one knocked it out of the park well.
First, we had Brynn. She had one of the easiest cakes there with red velvet, but the girl nailed this challenge.
Her red velvet cake was so close to the example one that it was almost hard to tell them apart!
The judges praised it as airy and moist, but the consensus was that it needed more filling. When they cut into it, you could barely see that yummy cream cheese frosting separating the layers, so there was a definite balance issue.
Kolby got to shine again since he charmed us with the story of cooking with his grandfather during the Southern auditions.
His Apple Stack cake was pure excellence. It could’ve easily gone to hell if he didn’t get the cook on the apples right.
Everything relied on the cake being structurally sound, and there was no way to hide any flaws if he didn’t pull it off. Fortunately, he excelled at this challenge, and his cake was as close as one could get to the original.
They even said it was his best performance of the season, and you could tell Joe was impressed with the cook on those apples.
Shockingly, Kennedy hoped to put a target on Wayne and somehow landed himself in the top three with Nine Layer Smith Island cake.
Is Wayne the Culinary Batman of the competition? Goodness!
Even though it wasn’t a perfect replica of the cake they gave him, given how challenging it was and that he managed to nail every component of it even when the time was running out, and it didn’t seem possible, they had to give him his due.
And it was delicious too. Aarón was definitely right about Wayne having nine lives.
Lizzie pulling it off was a surprise because she struggled with uneven cakes in the oven and got frazzled a few times while putting her cake together.
But her Marionberry was visually lovely and apparently tasted pretty damn good, too.
When you factor in the complexity of the cake, the taste, and the perfect execution, Kolby more than deserved to take home that win.
And it was hilarious how excited Kendal was about it because he definitely would’ve gone home, which brings us to the cake disasters.
Dessert Disasters
It sucked that because there were only two contestants left in the Northeast, Nina automatically had to be at the bottom with her German Chocolate Cake.
You could tell she was out of her element more, even though she looked badass mixing everything up by hand instead of with a mixer like some Culinary version of Rosie the Riveter. Her arms are insane!
The cake looked close enough to the original, but the issue seemed to be that it was too wet on the inside. Joe even compared it to oatmeal.
Nina said she often overcorrects to keep her cakes from being too dry, but oof. Mushy German Chocolate Cake somehow makes a girl think of that scene from Matilda.
Sadly, despite having one of the easiest desserts and being a dessert queen, MD’s Key Lime Pie was weak. For whatever reason, she couldn’t cool it in time, and it basically fell apart from there.
It genuinely sucks that MD was finally pushed to the forefront, and it was like this, but at least she made it another week.
Because poor King Kyle bit the bullet this time around.
He was out of his element with that Lemon Meyer cake, which showed in every capacity.
Baking is an exact science. You can’t freestyle it the same way you can with regular cooking, and Kyle’s laissez-faire cooking style clashed horribly with the technical structured baking necessary for that cake.
He was doomed.
It definitely looked like someone asked a seven-year-old to model the cake out of Play-Doh from memory.
He used cream cheese when he shouldn’t have after his filling fell apart, he barely managed to frost it or put any of the finish touches on it, and it was just a hot yellow mess.
It’s sad to see Kyle go. He was one of the best in the competition and one of the most consistent too.
A cake being the end of him is the worst. But the gentle giant was grateful for the experience and for setting a positive example for his son.
So back to the Midwest, he goes!
Over to you, Masterchef Fanatics. Do you think the right person went home? Hit the comments.
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Jasmine Blu is a senior staff writer for TV Fanatic. She is an insomniac who spends late nights and early mornings binge-watching way too many shows and binge-drinking way too much tea. Her eclectic taste makes her an unpredictable viewer with an appreciation for complex characters, diverse representation, dynamic duos, compelling stories, and guilty pleasures. You’ll definitely find her obsessively live-tweeting, waxing poetic, and chatting up fellow Fanatics and readers. Follow her on Twitter.
Oh, there is plenty to celebrate in
