Linda Dalrymple eliminated from MasterChef Australia

On Tuesday’s episode of  MasterChef Australia, Linda Dalrymple was eliminated. 

She was felled by a hyper-realistic Australian native bottlebrush dessert, the brain child of chef Hugh Allen of Vue de monde fine dining restaurant in Melbourne.

The bottlebrush is a mousse made from strawberry gum and a strawberry gel in the centre, covered in a green glaze and decorated in tempered white chocolate sticks coloured red to make a realistic flower. 

Alongside the bottlebrush are gumnuts made from a wattle seed mousse made and caramelised white chocolate. 

Last up are billy buttons, made from bee pollen and passionfruit, and the plate is decorated with real foliage.  

Linda fell behind and wasn’t able to create all the elements as well as she needed to and her bottlebrush base was the wrong colour.  

‘You know, it was sort of a fluoro-green bottlebrush, but her bottlebrush is decent and the sticks were really good,’ chef Hugh Allen said. 

 ‘Her chocolate sticks are perfect. Super shiny. And inside the bottlebrush was, like, actually constructed beautifully,’ judge Jock Allen said. 

‘Texture’s fantastic, and the flavour of the strawberry gum coming through. Gumnut, because it hasn’t been dipped, the texture’s just sort of letting go,’ judge Jock Zonfrillo said.   

‘It doesn’t take long for that mousse, because it’s so delicate, if it’s not dipped, it just starts to give up’.  

When it came to judging, Andy said that just too much went wrong for Linda.    

‘You missed coating your gumnut, and I’m afraid there was just too many flaws on your dish. And that’s why you’re going home,’ he said.  

Linda took the loss in her stride, saying after her elimination:  ‘I’m actually feeling, you know, quite content, just feeling very grateful. I’m just proud of where I am. And to say that I made it to top five, I’m pretty, pretty happy about that’.