Junior MasterChef recap: Ben, bees and a disembodied hand dominate delightful first week

Our first week of Junior MasterChef is over, and we’ve learned some truly bizarre things.

We now know that there are 12-year-olds out there eating lobster mornay “a few times a week”, like tiny French aristocrats.

We know our culinary skills are less than those of human beings who did not exist when the Killers released Mr Brightside.

And, most importantly, we’ve realised that if we don’t continue to watch these small chefs compete on free-to-air television we simply will not have enough serotonin to survive.

Related: Junior MasterChef: an adorable, joyous and extremely impressive antidote to 2020

2020 is a weird year. I’m still in lockdown. Please join me on this journey.

If you haven’t yet tuned into this season of Junior Masterchef – the first since 2011 – you’re missing out on some very wholesome television. On Sunday night we met the 14 delightful chefs, aged 10-14, competing for the title (and $25,000 prize).

They each introduced themselves by cooking an absurdly advanced “signature dish” and two contestants, Laura and Dev, won the right to hit an “immunity gong” that they can use at any point in the competition.

It’s also important you know we all became perhaps unhealthily obsessed with a small boy named Ben (see above).

On Monday night, Ben and the 13 other contestants who get less camera time competed in their first exciting – if not slightly traumatising – mystery box challenge. They were all warned that there was something very “dangerous” outside and that they couldn’t go to get it without protective gear.

Phenix chose to make some sticky honey chicken wings because she wanted to a) showcase her Vietnamese and Chinese heritage, and b) “get a good dish because I’ve stolen from the bees”. Smart. But, at the end of the day, it’s Georgia’s and Carter’s dishes that most please the aggrieved bees.

Despite being the only contestant who doesn’t like honey, Georgia managed to make an ornate honey trifle with honey sponge, crême anglaise, pomegranate poached pears and honeycomb made with honey instead of golden syrup.

Carter, a 12-year-old breakdancer, impressed the judges with the best carrot cake judge Jock Zonfrillo has ever eaten!

But hey, sometimes children fail like the rest of us! Tiffany was the first contestant this season to cry in the kitchen when her honey panna cotta didn’t set in the blast chiller. “I gave it my all, but all of it’s just not enough,” she said, heartbroken. She turned it around and sold the sugar puddle as “a very deconstructed honey panna cotta”.

A true Gen Z hustler.

The real heartbreak came with Tuesday night’s elimination. “This is the best place I’ve ever been in my entire life,” said Filo at the start of the episode. “[The MasterChef kitchen] is this big building where all your dreams come true,” said Ryan, who will later be eliminated for not using enough salt in his chicken.

We started with a blindfolded taste test, where the children had to identify everything from Nutella to sherbert to oysters. Ryan, Tiffany, Etka, Salvo, Ben, Porsha and Laura were the unlucky ones who guessed incorrectly, but Laura quickly hit her immunity gong, which means she’s automatically safe.

She joined the others on the gantry – including Filo, who essentially just rocked up for a stress-free day of filming to eat his favourite foods, olives and Turkish Delight.

The remaining six contestants went on to cook dishes you can eat with a spoon, chopsticks or your hands. Each option was dramatically unveiled from under a cloche, including a disembodied human hand.

Many of the contestants drew from their heritage for the challenge. Salvo made tiramisu, citing his Italian family’s recipe. Etka made some Uzbek samsa. Tiffany made a Hungarian feast with chicken gizzard stew. Ben made his “famous bao buns” – a dish he first ate on holiday in the Victorian border town of Albury.

Sadly the filling in Etka’s samsa was too dry, and he is one of the first mini-chefs to leave the MasterChef kitchen. He leaves along with Ryan and Porsha. Ryan’s Korean chicken is just missing that salt. Porsha’s dessert nachos (not as bad as it sounds) don’t have as much technique as the other dishes.

They all take it like champs and elbow bump their new mates on their way out. They leave with some kind of appliance from Harvey Norman under their tiny arms.

What made me feel the most inadequate

All of it. But the most acute moments of terror were when Salvo level-headedly described the difference between caponata and caponatina; and when Laura, aged 13, essentially recreated Peter Gilmore’s Snow Egg.

What I’ll be thinking about all week

Sweet Ben waving at a disembodied hand.

• Junior MasterChef continues on Sunday, Monday and Tuesday nights on Ten. We will be publishing weekly recaps on Wednesday mornings.