MasterChef Junior, the hugely popular youth cooking competition show, crowned a new champion Thursday night, and she’s a 12-year-old student at Atlanta. Jasmine Stewart, a sixth-grader, took home the MasterChef trophy as well as a $100,000 grand prize.
“This is the biggest moment of my entire life. Who would ever think a little girl from Milton, Georgia would ever win “MasterChef Junior?” said an elated Jasmine, moments after winning the final round of the competition, which aired Thursday evening on Fox in a two-hour-long finale.
Jasmine, who is a sixth-grader at the Ron Clark Academy in Atlanta went in with high hopes. The show, now in it's fifth season, is hosted by Gordon Ramsay, British star chef of “Hell’s Kitchen” and Christina Tosi, renowned pastry chef.
“Some of the highlights of the show was winning of course,” Jasmine told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution in an interview. “But I did love it when I got an apron. I never thought I would even make it on the show, let alone be getting an apron and get to wear it.”
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“Whether she’s baking flawless French macaroons or putting together stunning sushi, Jasmine’s culinary skill and sophisticated palate make her talented well beyond her years,” said Tosi.
After winning the first challenge — baking a flawless molten lava cake — Jasmine got to decide the choice of meat for contestants in the next challenge. Jasmine opted for a more challenging rack of...
...lamb over beef and pork. She made a Mediterranean lamb dish with herb couscous, olive puree and pickled bell peppers. Ramsay called the lamb “breathtaking.”
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Jasmine's final task of the competition was to prepare a three-course meal. This time, renowned chef Wolfgang Puck and Martha Stewart helped judge the dishes.
While Jasmine’s made a scallop and white fish appetizer and lobster tail entree received high marks, it was her dessert -- the sticky rum cake with pineapple chips -- that helped secure her victory. Tosi said she could open a pastry shop and just sell the sticky rum cake, it was that good.
But this win almost didn't happen. When Jasmine first went out for the show, she made her way from ‘Top 40’ to ‘Top 20’ to ‘Top 12’ before being eliminated. But it was her second time around that applied everything she learned from the first go round.
She described the biggest lesson learned was “not second guessing myself and staying confident in what I was doing.”
That confidence shined through when she challenged herself and took a risk of cooking chicken oysters.
“I never thought I would have to cook those, but I went for it,” said Stewart, who told herself that while it was a challenge, she could do it.
According to Stewart, she also strived to improve what “mainly tripped me up during the challenges,” and that is time management.
“[MasterChef Jr.] has been a great life experience and lesson. I am focused on having to go for it and I use that moment to push yourself further.
“When I was filming the show you are in the moment, so things that you say are natural,” she said.
Stewart recalled wishing she could maybe change “things I said or faces that I made.”
“When Michelle Obama was one of the guest judges. I said...
... ‘OMG RIP Me,’ which I would go back and change, but [the show is] on the spot, so you just go with it.
Here's a recipe for a winning rum cake like Jasmine's:
Ingredients:
cup chopped pecans or 1 cup chopped walnuts
1 (520 g) package yellow cake mix (You just use the cake mix as is, do not add other ingredients listed on cake box.)
1 (92 g) package vanilla instant pudding mix
4 eggs
1⁄2 cup cold water
1⁄2 cup cooking oil
1⁄2 cup dark rum or rum
Glaze
1⁄2 cup butter
1⁄4 cup water
1 cup sugar
1⁄2 cup dark rum or rum
Directions:
Sprinkle nuts over bottom of greased 10 inch tube pan or 12 cup bundt pan.
Stir together cake mix, pudding mix, eggs, water, oil and rum.
Pour batter over nuts.
Bake at 325 in oven for 1 hour.
Cool 10 minutes in pan.
Invert onto serving plate and prick top.
----Glaze----
Melt butter in saucepan.
Stir in water and sugar.
Boil 5 minutes, stirring constantly.
Remove from heat.
Stir in rum.
Brush glaze evenly over top and sides of cake.
Allow cake to absorb glaze.
Repeat until glaze is used up.
Justise Mayberry, 11, of Sugar Hill was also among the final four in the final cooking showdown of this culinary competition.
Justise, a sixth-grader at Lanier Middle School in Gwinnett County, also pointed to influences from her family.
“I was surrounded by it with my dad cooking all the time. Him being in the kitchen, that was the center of our house. That’s where we would hang out. I would always hang around him when he cooked, and it just kind of taught me to enjoy that and get used to it, and it’s something I enjoy now,” she told the Atlanta Journal-Constitution.
