MasterChef Junior season 6 episode 6 review: Pizza costumes and food of the world
MasterChef Junior season 6 episode 6 is probably overall the best hour we’ve seen this season, largely because of one simple thing: Allowing the young home cooks to be themselves. This is not a show that needs its contestants to go out and recreate a judge’s signature dish, just as it is also not a show that really needs to waste a whole lot of time watching them all do the same thing out in the field. We don’t need this show to be like Hell’s Kitchen — it’s about the creativity of the kids and getting to know more about them.
Tonight, the competition was broken down effectively into two different phases that were both interesting and fun.
1. The Mystery Box – The kids had to make a dessert using a sweetener that is not processed sugar. Think in terms of something like honey, agave, raspberry, maple, or something else natural. This may have been the best challenge for the kids all season long! Everyone did a pretty good job with it but for Remi in particular, she proved herself within this challenge to be a pretty serious contender for the grand prize. She was strong from start to finish with her baked donuts.
At the moment, Remi is the favorite to win this season and it’s not even close. She’s won two straight Mystery Boxes and pretty much everything she’s put out so far is on another level. She’s a prodigy with a huge future in baking in particular.
2. The elimination challenge – The idea here was to make food representative of your heritage, whether it be American, Italian, Belorussian, or something else altogether. (This, for whatever reason, was kicked off by the judges wearing costumes — Christina was the Statue of Liberty complete with face makeup, Gordon was in a kilt, and Joe was a giant pizza.)
Once again, this was a case were there were no clear disasters, and really the two kids who were eliminated didn’t necessarily do too much wrong save for a few mistakes. For Sophia, she burned the tortilla on her quesadilla and tried to cover it up by flipping it around on the plate. Meanwhile, Mackenzie just made a number of technical mistakes in her attempt to make sushi — we give her all the credit in the world for even trying something with that degree of difficulty.
CarterMatt Verdict
This is what MasterChef Junior should be — fun, eventful, light, and thoroughly entertaining to watch. The only thing we’re concerned about is if Remi remains the favorite for the rest of the season, that’s not actually going to create all that much drama. This show is better when it feels like there are a few possible contenders.
What did you think about tonight’s MasterChef Junior episode, and are you bummed out by the eliminations? Share now in the comments below!