Having won the first immunity challenge of the season, Christy Tania watched on from the gantry as our nine chefs opened their mystery boxes to see what lay before them. The elimination challenge was all about smoke and mirrors, creating a dessert that is not what it seems.
Chefs went the distance, creating avocado on toast, cabbage, and even a jar of vegemite.
Cake wizard Katherine Sabbath created a mini sandcastle out of a desert lime cheesecake, pineapple curd and a crunchy biscuit base, adorned with honeycomb coral, lychee jelly, and white chocolate shells. The dish looked stunning, but the judges found the flavours fell a little flat and she sadly became the first of our brilliant bunch to be eliminated.
Speaking to 10 Play, Katherine said the experience of competing on Dessert Masters was one she ran to "with a mixture of fear and delight".
"I try to run towards things that scare me because that's where the most growth occurs, outside of your comfort zone," she explained.
The competition was a massive change to how Katherine usually creates her celebration cakes, a multi-day operation that features planning, testing and research. "I'd normally shy away from these sorts of things because I don't like cooking under that type of pressure," she admitted.
"That's not how I like to treat my cakes or how I enjoy the artform... but I knew it would push me creatively in so many ways, and to be cooking amongst chefs, dessert stars, people I have admired for so long. I knew it would be a once-in-a-lifetime experience."
Bringing her sandcastle cake up to the judges, Katherine admitted that she was already proud for getting a finished dessert onto the plate in such a short amount of time.
"Looking back, there are so many things I would change but it's a good thing when you can see the flaws and know where you can improve," she added. "But when it's that level of competition you can't step a foot wrong.
"When I feed my friends and family, the aim is to have fun, to eat with your eyes and share in that. It's always a party," Katherine said. But in the Dessert Masters kitchen, everything is stripped back and the cake has to stand on its own, designed to be picked apart by culinary pros.
In her past life as a high school History, Social Sciences and English teacher, Katherine began sharing photos of her cakes online, building a massive following and eventually giving her the confidence to make her passion a full-time gig. She has since written three cookbooks and appeared as a guest judge on MasterChef in 2018 setting her own 12-layered Birthday Cake.
"I knew that making a celebration cake in three hours is no mean feat. I knew the contestants were going to be in for quite a high-pressure challenge but I was just so happy to have a cake made for me, and I was so proud of how the contestants fared," she said.
Now, on the other side of the judging table, Katherine got to experience the full effect of trying to create one of her iconic cakes with the MasterChef clock ticking overhead.
"In the Dessert Masters kitchen you don't have a lot of room for error, so I definitely feel sorry for any contestants that I've had to put in that position," she laughed. "But it's the beauty of the show, we all sign up for it and we all love it. I hope that, even though it was a difficult challenge when I was a guest judge, I hope they enjoyed and learned something from it too because, well, that's the point of life."
Coming into the Dessert Masters experience, Katherine saw it as another learning opportunity, and even if things didn't go her way it was still a chance for her to learn and grow.
"We're not here to fail, and I really want people to know that if you do put yourself in a situation that you're uncomfortable with and you feel like you don't do well, you have not failed," she continued.
"It might be perceived as a failure because your expectations don't meet what the outcome was, but if you reframe that mindset and think about what you've learned and what you've done to challenge yourself, the next time you experience something like that is just going to become easier and easier each time you take on things that scare you."
Katherine saw Dessert Masters as an opportunity to not only challenge herself but to also receive constructive feedback to push her creations even further. She wanted to make sure she was taken seriously and wanted audiences and her fellow competitors to also know she was taking the experience seriously.
Ahead of the competition, Katherine stopped drinking coffee to make sure her hands were steady, her mind was clear and she wasn't at risk of having a caffeine-induced "full anxiety meltdown".
"I don't know if anyone picked up on this but I completely cut off my nails," she added. "Because I don't work in a commercial kitchen I can dress how I like and I always maintain the utmost standards of health and cleanliness but I do like to have fancy nails as well," she said.
"I was there to compete... and also, yes, I was there to have fun and sometimes get distracted by things like a candy floss machine," she added, laughing.
Heading into the first elimination, Katherine was aware of the reality that she had a one in nine chance of being the first chef to be eliminated. "I was just really proud to be there and have that experience.
"I have no regrets because I knew that if I didn't do this [competition], it would be the major thing I would kick myself for. I do think a lot of the times I was scared and frightened I had to remember that it was scary because it was new, not because I wasn't capable."
As for her advice to any pastry pros in the industry who are thinking of taking on the Dessert Masters challenge, Katherine said, "If your immediate reaction is, 'Hell no I could never', that means you have to do it.
"Is it you standing in the way of yourself? Most of the time it is. You have to start, say yes to things, and do things that terrify you. I'm so proud of doing that.
"Yeah, feedback from a five-year-old is great when you're making a cake, but feedback from the best in the biz? You can't pay for that."
Dessert Masters continues Monday at 7.30 on 10 and 10 Play
