Image: Charlie Sperring

The twelfth episode of MasterChef SA was, according to Justine, "probably one of the most stressful challenges we saw this season" as the losing team from the previous episode had to compete in an epic two-hour cake challenge. 


Dynamic duo and cake experts, Mari-Louis Guy and Callie Maritz joined our contestants in the MasterChef SA kitchen giving them a few tips on styling cakes.

Furthermore, they revealed that the contestants would compete in a blind challenge without any reference of what their final product should look like. 

The brief: three tiers of condensed milk sponge with ice cream sugar cone lining cloud cake, whipped milk jam, Isomalt crystals, Italian meringue buttercream frosting, rice paper frills, strawberry swirls, and a fondant bluebird in flight.


Onti, Luyanda,  Shawn, and Tembisa were all quite panicked as baking is not their best quality.

When Tembisa removed her sponge from the oven, it resembled “baked oats”. Unfortunately, her milk jam curdled, and according to her resembled “inkomzi”.

Onti started out by placing her batter in the oven, only to realise it wasn’t switched on. 

When asked by the judges what she enjoyed most about the process, Luyanda mockingly said “ being done”. According to her, she doesn’t enjoy the scientific part of baking.


Shawn also isn’t a baker, but he seemed quite confident, reading the recipe like an “engineering manual”. 

Though Sims seemed quite confident at first, he experienced quite a bit of difficulty behind his station. First, he forgot to add his condensed milk to his cake batter only realising it after his cake was in the oven and then having to start again.




And after his second attempt, he dropped his cake. 


But luckily, he had a second batch of cake. Though not cooled, it was available. 


Before presenting it to the judges, Onti made us all panic when she tried to transfer her cake to her cake board. 

And though our contestant’s cakes resembled the Leaning Tower of Pisa, the judges were just too glad to see cakes at every station. “At one stage I thought we weren’t going to have cake, I’m just glad to see cakes on every single person’s station,” said Zola. 

Unfortunately, Tembisa and Onti’s cakes didn’t impress the judges. 

Onti’s jam layer left a greasy taste in the judges’ mouths as it split and her sponge seemed too dry and dense. 

Though her sponge was moist and light, Tembisa’s milk jam curdled.


Sadly, we said goodbye to Onti, leaving the judges and her fellow contestants all quite emotional.

Find out what she had to say after leaving the kitchen below: 

Do you have a favourite tomato dish? Let us know on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by using #MasterChefSA. Remember to watch MasterChef SA every Monday to Thursday at 18:00 on M-Net channel 101. In case you missed the latest episode, catch up with DStv using your connected device.