MasterChef fans left furious over detail in Jess Lemon's challenge: 'Waste of an episode'

Jess Lemon proved on MasterChef Australia that the dessert queen still deserves her crown.

On Wednesday night’s episode, Sweet Week wrapped with a classic Beat the Chef immunity challenge featuring Jess Lemon, a fan favourite contestant who has competed on MasterChef twice (no biggie!), along with placing third in Dessert Masters.

After the air fryer dessert challenge, Alyona, Pat, Hannah and Bella earned the chance to cook against Jess for the pin. Each had to hero a flavour — Bella had fennel, Alyona lemon, Pat raspberry, and Hannah had hazelnut — while Jess cooked with ginger.

The contestants pushed hard, but Jess basically came in like a goddamn tornado, making a refined ginger dessert with honey wafer threads and ginger ice cream. The judges called it restaurant-ready, so naturally Jess beat them all and no one won the immunity pin. Yay? Maybe not!

Not everyone was pleased with the result. A vocal fringe of MasterChef fans has argued that without the dishes being tasted blind — as in without judges knowing who they belong to — there is no way to ensure fairness in a challenge where a professional pastry chef is competing against home cooks.

In several posts on X, furious fans have argued that the blind tasting needs to make a comeback.

This isn’t to say that there hasn’t been any blind tastings on MasterChef this season, in fact, there have been several blind tastings or judgings on the 2026 season, including in a Justine Schofield challenge. That said, they are far less frequent than they once were on the reality cooking show.

In recent years, fans have complained that blind tasting have been faded out, or at least aren’t used enough. The recurring argument is that blind judging would reduce accusations of favouritism, especially in finals, pressure tests and close eliminations.

In particular, during the 2025 season of Back To Win, fans complained about perceived Laura Sharrad favouritism, including comments that judges were protecting her more than other competitors.

A former MasterChef contestant says that blind tasting is ‘irrelevant’ in the competition

So what do MasterChef’s contestants think about blind testing? Jamie Fleming, who placed third on MasterChef Australia 2025, told Chattr that blind tastings aren’t quite the equaliser that fans believe they are.

“I think that blind taste testing would not have mattered… if you didn’t say whose dish was whose, I guarantee that you could still tell whose dishes, because we all cook differently,” he said.

Jamie believes that due to the contestants’ individual cooking styles, judges can differentiate who is who.

Ultimately, Jamie reckons that towards the pointy end of the show that “the blind tasting would be completely irrelevant,” he continued. “I guarantee you that if the judges were blind in any of last three or four weeks of television, they could tell you exactly who cooked what.”

MasterChef Australia airs Sunday – Wednesday on Channel 10 and 10Play.

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