YES! I FINALLY GOT A 10!!!! Obviously I am delighted to have eventually achieved that 10 I’ve been waiting for. I feel like it’s a bit of a monkey off my back to be honest, as I should have got a 10 earlier in the week, but again those silly little mistakes meant 8’s and 9’s.

But, that 10 didn’t come easily! I must admit I genuinely struggled and I know exactly what went wrong. I don’t know if you’ve noticed the guys on the show in the background, wearing black. They are there to help with anything that might take up unnecessary time. For example, the weighing out of ingredients. The guy that was helping me had very kindly vacuum packed the glucose for my tuile and had told me to warm it in the water bath to make sure all of the glucose measured out would come out of the vacuum bag. BUT, as no element of my dessert required a water bath I didn’t have one on and warmed up. So when it came to me pushing the glucose out of the bag, as it was cold, it didn’t come out easily and some got left in the bag. In the tired and emotional state I was in I stupidly thought this would be ok…

But I knew as soon as I got it out of the oven it wasn’t right. There was too much fat in it, so the consistency was all wrong and I couldn’t spread it and roll it thin enough. However stupidly with the time restraint I persevered with it anyway, ultimately realising with 20 minutes to go that it wasn’t really working I had to make another batch. I also managed to make my way through 3 temperature probes! I had to heat my sugar to 165 degrees. I’d bought a really good sugar thermometer before the competition, but annoyingly left it up north in Yorkshire. Turns out very basic temperature probes really don’t work too well above 100 degrees. Even if you do try it 3 times!

My dessert really did mean a lot to me and there was so much added stress and emotion. I really wanted this dish to do well, especially with it being in memory of my Grandfather. Luckily Mini was on hand for cuddles and emotional support.

There was a slight mood killer towards the end of the show. When I said ‘kill the lights’ for my Douglas Fir dry ice moment, it wasn’t as smooth as it came across. It actually took about 5 minutes, as a guy from the production team had to walk around the studio and unplug all the lights one by one, whilst I stood watching my dessert melt. That definitely added a little bit of suspense/tension!

When Tom announced my score and told me I had attained the joint highest score ever I was very humbled and honoured to be on parr with chefs such as Daniel Clifford, Tom Kerridge and Tom Aikens. Having watched them before on the show it was amazing to be on the same level as chefs that I’ve always looked up to.

I’m so excited to be cooking for the judges tonight. After filming the 4 courses, the emotion (and lack of sleep!) had really got to me but I was intrigued to see if the judges enjoyed my dishes as much as Tom did, and was eager to see whether they’ll agree with his scores.

I hope you all enjoy the show tonight!

P.s #bromance

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