“Singing Chef” Josh misses out on a sweet spot in the MasterChef South Africa Top 10.

The pressure is always on in the MasterChef South Africa kitchen, but this week it reached boiling point as the toughest challenge yet determined the show’s Top 10 home cooks. Although all the contestants grappled with glitches while trying to recreate a delicate dessert, it proved to be a gruelling ordeal for 28-year-old Josh Lotz from Pretoria, MasterChef South Africa’s inimitable “Singing Chef”

Josh, who often broke into song amid the kitchen chaos and entertained viewers with his quirky comments, eccentric stories and theatrical style, even named his creation “A Tale of Trauma” – an apt description for the dish that cost him a place in the show’s coveted Top 10.

The young television co-ordinator’s road to disaster began when the judges announced the first “Pressure Test” of the season. In MasterChef terms, this means the contestants must replicate a culinary work of art presented by a distinguished guest chef.

This masterpiece belonged to South Africa’s queen of patisserie, Chef Motheba Makhetha. She brought along and demonstrated the ins and outs of her showstopping Paris-Brest (classic French choux pastry), with peanut butter mousse, banana jam, peanut praline, chocolate ganache, caramelised peanuts, peanut skins and chocolate feathers.

With all these time-consuming elements, matching Chef Motheba’s excellence required precision, hectic multitasking and plenty of patience. Not only did the anxious home cooks have to execute these different elements to perfection, but they also had to follow her recipe to the letter. And these letters stretched across six long pages.

Creating the crux of the dessert, the choux pastry, soon turned into a nightmare. Chef Motheba’s tip that the choux should go into the oven when smelling like porridge posed a particular problem: what does porridge actually smell like?

However, in a dramatic moment, judge Zola Nene detected a completely different, worrying whiff in the kitchen. Something was burning. Unbeknownst to Candice, it was her choux. As she described it: “It looked like a mountain scorched by the sun.”

But Candice was not the only one having to redo elements. There were second takes for several of the contestants, and Josh racked up the most U-turns along the way.

First, his choux didn’t develop properly, calling for a second batch, and then he burnt his peanuts. Dr Phil came to the rescue, offering Josh some of his spare peanuts. Still, the good doctor’s generosity couldn’t save the day.

Josh, who presented a winning dish in a previous episode, landed in the bottom two alongside Ntobeko. Neither cracked the recipe’s code and, ultimately, the judges – Chef Katlego Mlambo, Zola Nene and Justine Drake – as well as guest judge Motheba Makhetha, decided that Josh would not proceed to the Top 10.

Meanwhile, it was a surefire spot for Benjie, whose presentation ticked all the boxes, resulting in his second winning dish of the season.

With Josh eliminated, the MasterChef Top 10 now consists of the last two remaining female home cooks, Shoki and Candice, alongside Benjie, Dr Phil, Calvin, Keith, Jeshen, and the three Zulu culinary warriors, Simele, Ntobeko and Nkululeko.

In the next episode, this elite squad will have to display their creativity by turning two-minute noodles into a MasterChef-worthy dish.

MasterChef South Africa Season 6 airs on e.tv on Sundays at 18:00, with simultaneous streaming on eVOD Live TV. Episodes are rebroadcast on Saturdays at 17:00, with additional rebroadcasts on eExtra on Saturdays at 20:30 and eReality on Sundays at 17:00.

The series is produced by the multiple-award-winning production company Homebrew Films for Primedia Studios.

You can follow MasterChef South Africa Season 6 on Instagram at sa_masterchef and Facebook at MasterChef South Africa. 

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