Gareth Whitton was crowned the winner of Dessert Masters 2023 in an emotional grand final episode on Tuesday night, but it was not without its problems.
There was a shock moment during the two-course service challenge when Gareth sliced open his thumb while cutting rhubarb for his first dessert.
But Gareth has claimed the incident was not as it was depicted on air.
‘On TV I was cutting rhubarb and then I cut my hand and bled. But actually I was unmoulding the entree of acacia seeds and chocolate mousse,” he said Yahoo lifestyle,
Gareth said he had a paring knife to cut the edge of the entree and this is when he cut his thumb.
Gareth Whitton was crowned the winner of Dessert Masters 2023 in an emotional grand final episode on Tuesday night, but it was not without its problems. During the two-course service challenge there was a shock moment when Gareth cut his thumb while cutting rhubarb
Gareth said he had a paring knife to cut the edge of his entree of acacia seed and chocolate mousse, and this is when he cut off his thumb
The pastry chef received the highest score from judges Melissa Leong and Amaury Guichon for his final dessert, beating out fan favorites Jess Liemantara and Reynold Poernomo.
He explained that as a pastry chef he was not used to using sharp knives, and that the utensils in the Dessert Masters kitchen were all completely new.
Despite this mishap, the pastry chef earned the highest score from judges Melissa Leong and Amaury Guichon for his final dessert, beating out fan favorites Jess Liemantara and Reynold Poernomo.
“I never actually expected that I would be here in the final…” he said after his victory.
“You know, it’s surreal that I finally got through it.”
However, Gareth’s victory did not go down well with all viewers, many of whom took to social media to express their frustrations.
Reynold, who has been a fan favorite since his first appearance on the culinary scene, once again missed out on the top spot, causing an uproar among his loyal followers.
“Boooo!” wrote a fan of the show on X, formally known as Twitter.
Reynold, who has been a fan favorite since his first appearance on the culinary scene, once again missed out on the top spot, causing an uproar among his loyal followers. Pictured
“Reynold got robbed, he dominated the whole match and then lost to Gareth with two standard desserts,” added another.
‘Oh no Reinold. Still my favorite dessert chef in the world,” another added.
“Reynold dominated every challenge and somehow bloody Gareth wins?” Dude doesn’t have even a fraction of Reynold’s creativity and vision, yet we have to believe he’s a better dessert chef than Reynold. This is a joke,” a third wrote.
“I think they just used Rey for power. How sad,” another viewer commented
Elsewhere, viewers also felt Jess had gotten a raw deal.
“Jess got really screwed up tonight. The Frenchman liked her dishes but gave her a score of 6 and 7, wtf,” another disgruntled fan wrote.
Meanwhile, one fan found the entire episode a disappointment, from go to woah.
‘That is why the finals must be blind tasting. Frenchie was much harsher on Reynold than anyone else… the white dude acted like it was a year 12 home economics cooking class and somehow got A’s against dessert artists,” one person wrote.
‘The whole episode felt so anticlimactic and off-kilter, changing the format from anything they’d done before, with the presentation being judged not for Gareth, but still for Reynold and Jess. The score doesn’t really match the comments,” wrote another.
However, there were viewers who had no drama.
‘Reynold’s stans are the biggest crybabies and the most arrogant of all the MasterChef editions. Like he’s not that great,” they wrote.
‘The underdog wins! I love it,” wrote one Gareth fan.
‘Awesome! I’ve enjoyed watching everything you’ve done in Dessert Masters Gareth. Congratulations,” another added.