Celebrity MasterChef viewers bemused as Black Eyed Peas star serves up baked potato

Celebrity MasterChef viewers were astonished after Black Eyed Peas star apl.de.ap served the judges a baked potato.

The hip hop star is one of the contestant on the latest series of the BBC show, in which celebrity contestants are set challenges to cook 'fine dining' recipes judged by John Torode and Gregg Wallace.

In the first round of his heat, singer and rapper apl.de.ap - real name Allan Pineda Lindo - was challenged to cook a dish containing the ingredient goats cheese, which he mistook for a block of butter.

The 48-year-old Filipino-American musician - who is has limited vision fur to a condition he was born with - opted to bake a potato, and mix the insides with the goats cheese, and chopped mushroom and bacon.

The judges were impressed with the skills and palate demonstrated by the dish and decided to put him through to the next round.

Wallace told him: "Your choice of the ingredients is absolutely sound. That sticky goats' cheese is tangy, it's sour and then with salty bacon, it's a marriage made in heaven."

Torode added: "What you've got is great textures as well as great flavour.

"The outside, that skin you've got from the potato is really crispy and it's slightly salty too, which is good.

"On top of that you've got crispy bacon, in between that is fluffy potato and that creaminess of the cheese. And the mushrooms have got a slight bit of crunch to them. I like it a lot."

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But viewers were stunned that such a simple dish could be enough to keep apl.de.ap in the competition.

One commented on X [formally Twitter]: "I know it’s Celebrity Masterchef, but presenting a jacket potato to the judges?"

Another said: "Black eyed Peas guy basically put some goats cheese on a baked potato."

One viewer declared: "It's a baked potato...they are talking like he grew it himself and then cooked it."

And another exclaimed: "A baked potato ? He’s cooked a baked potato ?"

The rapper was competing for a place in the semi-finals against Strictly Come Dancing's Dianne Buswell, Emmerdale's Amy Walsh, Love Island's Luca Bish and Emmerdale actor Michael Praed

At the end of the episode Buswell was sent home.

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