Pastry chef Adriano Zumbo carried in the tower of profiteroles, which was adorned with sugar butterflies. There were chocolate profiteroles forming a swirl through the cake, as well as the usual kind filled with vanilla crème patisserie.

Adriano told the celebrity contestants that this recipe was twice has hard as the last croquembouche. The contestants had three and a half hours to conquer his recipe.

Alex started with the crème patisserie or custard as per the recipe, whereas the others began by making the choux pastry for the profiteroles. Eamon’s pastry mix was too thin, so Adriano suggested he put the mixture in the fridge to thicken it up.

Kirk’s first profiteroles, which he piped onto the baking tray, were too big and he had to start again. Alex abandoned his piping bag and spooned his choux mixture instead.

Eamon’s first profiteroles were flat as tacks when cooked. Rachael burnt one of her profiterole batches, while Alex’s profiteroles rose, but had no bottom to them.

When another batch of Alex’s profiteroles was too hard after he removed them from the oven, the musician told George it was all over. George gave him a pep talk and suggested he stick some of the flat profiteroles together.

Dipping his profiteroles in the hot toffee, Alex burnt his fingers and left the kitchen. George followed him outside and urged him to hang in there. Alex returned to the kitchen and by the end of the challenge, his fingers were covered with bandages.

Eamon and Rachael unmoulded their croquembouches successfully. Alex unmoulded his, burning his fingers yet again and the croquembouche was a bit of a sorry sight. Kirk’s was leaning over, so he propped up the base with an extra profiterole.

With 10 seconds to go, the top of Alex’s croquembouche fell over and he bashed it back together with Adriano’s help.

Rachael proudly carried in her effort and Matt told her it looked perfect. Gary said her profiteroles were beautiful, with silky crème patisserie, while the caramel was crunchy with a lovely, slightly bitter flavour. George said Rachael had done a fantastic job, while Matt struggled to find anything wrong her pressure test dish.

George loved the custard of Eamon’s profiteroles but said they were too varying in size. Gary loved Eamon’s dark caramel. Matt noted Eamon’s chocolate profiteroles were not arranged in a “swirl”.

Kirk, who had run out of time to make his sugar butterfly, told the judges it had “flown away”. Matt liked Kirk’s spun sugar and Gary loved the strong vanilla and chocolate flavours of Kirk’s pastry creams.
When Alex carried his woebegone croquembouche into the judges, both he and the judges had a good laugh at its appearance. After tasting it, Matt said Alex’ “crushed” dessert nethertheless contained excellent pastry creams. Gary said if you were blindfolded, it tasted exactly the same as the other contestants’ dishes.

Rachael, Eamon and Kirk were though to the finale and Alex left the MasterChef kitchen.

Stay tuned tomorrow night to see who will be the first Celebrity MasterChef!