Heston Blumenthal

Heston drops by and sets finalists Sarah and Billie a five-hour tart challenge. Who almost crumbles under the pressure but wins the whole thing anyway?

Billie wins 58 to 56, and we can only hope the celebration at her house in front of the TV is as heartfelt as the fake one she did for the cameras. And so ends another season of MasterChef, on a note that everyone will agree is a perfect one, unless they wanted Sarah to win in which case they'll be furious. She tells the judges that she's grown a lot, and it's true that she is quite tall. As the judges gaze upon the wonder that is Billie' taffety tart, they are overwhelmed by a feeling of serenity and gratitude that they have been blessed to be born into a world where such a dessert can exist. As they taste the tart, they understand what it is to ascend into the celestial realm and French kiss God Himself. Never has a taffety tart been so taffety. There is only one way that Billie can rescue her dish, and that is by making the caramel again with the right kind of sugar. The judges are happy with Sarah's tart, but her pastry is a slightly different texture to Heston's, which in many cultures is considered a hate crime. Sarah has decided to use the kind of sugar the recipe tells her to, while Billie, ever the maverick, has decided to give the wrong kind of sugar a go. An oily crumble is the kind of crumble that could easily rob a person of the MasterChef trophy. They have five hours and 15 minutes to complete the dish, a timespan that emphasises how much this dish is not worth the effort. Then Billie serves her cumin panna cotta with rosemary and rhubarb, which sounds like the frenzied ravings of a madman, but is actually a nice bowl of pink and white things. Today, Heston has set the cooks the challenge of making his taffety tart: a tart that somehow manages at the same time to be taffety.