Tonight on FOX Masterchef returns with an all-new Monday, January 2, 2017, special episode called “Masterchef Celebrity Showdown,” and we have your Masterchef Celebrity Showdown recap below! On tonight’s special Masterchef episode as per the FOX synopsis, “The stars come out to test their culinary skills and face off against each other for charity. Celebrity contestants include Trai and Grace Byers (“Empire”); reality TV’s NeNe and Gregg Leakes; Cheryl Hines (“Son of Zorn”); Kal Penn (“Superhuman”); former NFL stars Ronde and Tiki Barber; and Good Charlotte’s Joel and Benji Madden. Also: Anthony Anderson (“black-ish”) teams up with Gordon Ramsay to take on Jordana Brewster (“Lethal Weapon”) and Christina Tosi.”
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Some of America’s most famous stars were on tonight for an all new “MasterChef Celebrity Showdown”. However, the stars tonight were not cooking for some title or even for a cookbook. They were instead cooking for charity because each round apparently offered a large charity to the winner’s charity of choice and that could do have a lot of good. So first up in the competition with twenty-five grand on the line was Comedienne Cheryl Hines who was more commonly known for her role in “Curb Your Enthusiasm” and actor Kal Penn who was more commonly known for his “Harold and Kumar” franchise yet both parties had worthwhile charities already lined long before they entered the kitchen.
Cheryl wanted to donated the money towards United Cerebral Palsy. Cheryl has a nephew that was born with the condition and she has been an active advocate since learning about her nephew. Yet, Kal had chosen to donate any proceeds to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East. Kal had said that twenty-five thousand could feed over a thousand refugees for a year and that would ensure that no one went without. So both parties had had a cause that had deeply affected them and they had wanted to raise as much money as they could for these individual charities, but there could only be one winner and they had a Mystery Box.
The Mystery Box was an unknown ingredient that they would both have to cook with. So there was no preparation beforehand and they literally had to think of a recipe in an instant in order to get everything right though luckily their secret ingredient turned out to be beer. Beer was often used in plenty of recipes that most people don’t know about so it was a good ingredient. But cooking wasn’t necessarily easy for everyone even with an ingredient like beer and didn’t help that there had been more than one accident in the kitchen. There was an incident in which Cheryl’s pan boiled over and caught fire. And then was also the time Cheryle nearly blinded Kal.
Cheryl had been trying to play a trick on Kal with a pair prongs and she was sneaking up behind him when either she missed or he turned, however, the end result had been that Cheryl had nearly taken out his eye. Though Kal had been kind enough to laugh it off and he had also chose to continue with the competition rather than sit it out. So Kal kept cooking despite the fact he had had to keep the injured eye closed and that later resulted in his dish. Kal had cooked Halibut Tacos with Beer Marinade, Citrus Coleslaw, and Chipotle-Beer Aioli and they hadn’t been perfect. There had been some tacos that had been soggy and Ramsay had felt there was too much coleslaw.
So that could have truly have hurt Kal in the competition yet there had been a few tacos that were edible and the judges had enjoyed them. Ramsay had loved the flavor and Christina had said that it made her feel like she was on the beach so that meant Kal had a pretty good chance of winning. However, Cheryl had stayed with a classic. She had made Chicken & Waffles with Beer Batter and Orange-Beer Marmalade and again both of had enjoyed their meal. They had loved the fried chicken and Christina had liked the citrus flavor that she tasted because she thought that was adding something new. And so it had been a tough decision for the judges.
They liked both of the meals and there were similar in that they had good parts as well as bad. Yet, the judges had made their decision and they had gone with Kal. Kal had made his taco shells from scratch and he had frankly made tacos better than some of the chefs the judges knew. So Kal was a clear winner and Cheryl got to take her last bow because of her hard work, but with one competition down then it was quickly onto the next and so the kitchen was cleaned. And everything was set up for the teams of two. There were apparently two married couples going up against each other and they were both a riot.
The first couple was Nene and Gregg Leakes. They were famously known from their reality show “Real Housewives of Atlanta” and they were participating in hopes of raising money for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. Broadway Cares is one of the nation’s leading industry-based HIV/AIDS fundraising and grant-making organizations. But the happy reality couple were battling it out against newlyweds Trai and Grace Byers. Trai and Grace had met on their hit show “Empire” and they had wanted to donate proceeds from the competition to Saving Our Daughters. Saving Our Daughters creates the tools as well as program to get teen girls discussing key issues such as bullying, date abuse, hate crimes, and other esteem slayers. So both couples had a lot on the line.
They had two empowering charities to fight over and they also had the advantage in the competition that meant they should have been better than Cheryl and Kal. The couples were after all of cooking with someone that they were familiar with. Though to sorta of lessen that advantage, the judges had set up round two as a tag-team. The tag-team required that only one person on that team be in the kitchen at the time and it was pretty hard for some to finish what their spouse started. So the Leakes struggled a bit. Gregg as it turns out was the cook meanwhile Nene just tried to do her best to follow directions however the Byers were a little better.
Both teams had to make a Masterchef Gameday Party Platter. The platter was made up of jalapeno poppers, pigs in a blanket, guacamole dip, fresh tortilla, wings, and burgers. So that was a lot to put on any dish yet both teams had surprisingly gotten everything out in time. However, the Byers whose communication between each other had been above par had messed up on their tortilla chips. The chips had been thrown in with the poppers which was a no no and worse they hadn’t been seasoned right on when they were supposed to so the chips had been bland. And that could have worked against them.
Yet, the judges preferred the Byers’ platter and so the win eventual went to the “Empire” couple, but Gregg had done a great job. Gregg had gotten the color and taste down to perfection and his wife had truly finished the poppers with just the right amount of spice. So that competition had been a close one as well and thankfully it hadn’t been the last of the double teams. The next event had also been double teams and it had been sets of twins against each other. And they were supposed to one up the other in the battle of desserts.
The first set of twins had been Joel and Benji Madden. The twins had rose to fame because of their band “Good Charlotte” and they had wanted to donate their proceeds to MusiCares. MusiCares is an organization that provides a safety net of critical assistance for music people in times of need. So the twins had most likely chosen that charity because of their own tough start in the industry. But the Madden Brothers were going up against the Barber Brothers. The Barber Brothers are Tiki and Ronde Barber who are both athletes and were at the top of their game during the younger competing days though the Barbers wanted to donate their proceeds to KultureCity.
KultureCity was an organization that helped children with autism as well as their families to understand what autism is and that it doesn’t mean their children can’t live fulfilling lives. So again two charities that were both giving to the community however the guys had a dessert challenge. Dessert was a lot harder than it looked because it combined all of these intricacies that would mean disaster if merely one thing went wrong. Though the guys had said that they both had experiences with the cream puffs and they went on to cooking truly unique takes on the dessert. The Barbers had filled their cream puff with vanilla, raspberries, and blood orange.
However, the Barbers hadn’t filled their cream puff to capacity and their sportsmen pride decorations hadn’t been quite enough. So that gave the Madden a big lead and unfortunately the guys had nearly destroyed that with their own cream puff. The Madden had filled delish cream puff with caramel and dark chocolate with sea salt and there had been a few problems. For example, Christina had found an eggshell in her cream puff and Ramsay had felt that his cream puff had tasted too sweet yet in the end the sweetness and even the eggshell which was a huge taboo hadn’t been enough to knock the Madden brothers out of the competition because the judges had felt it was a touch and go between the two twins.
So what it came down to was the filling. The Madden Brothers had done better with filling and their decorations had looked as if a chef had baked their pastries. And so the judges later chose the Madden Brothers as their winner of twenty-five thousand dollar prize, but they had also given the Barber Brother a prize of fifteen thousand as well. So both teams walked away having earned something for their charities and they also knew what they had to work on for the future in case they wanted to bake something nice for their families. Yet, the battle of the twins wasn’t the final match because the final match happen to involve the judges themselves.
Both Christina and Ramsay had teamed up with Jordana Brewster from “Lethal Weapon” and Anthony Andersen from “Blackish”. So it was the battle of the sexes with girls vs. boys. Christina and Jordana had combined forces to win the grand prize and raise money for No Kid Hungry which was a nationwide to end child hunger and also teach families how to cook healthy meals for their children. The guys on the other hand were raising money for the Boys & Girls Club. The Boys & Girls Club offers program as well as safe haven for underprivileged kids around the county. So the two teams had a goal and just their luck they also a mystery box.
The Mystery Box was once again carrying around the ingredients that were crucial to the task at hand, but the one that Jordana and Anthony received had been filled with more than one ingredient. So the two teams had been given a protein. Jordana had gotten cod and Anthony had gotten veal. However, Anthony and Ramsay wanted to elevate their game by cooking a dessert with their meal so they wanted to cook Veal Parmesan with Pasta and Apple Pie for dessert. The girls though had taken up the challenge of adding dessert so they cooked Fried Cod with French Fries and Sticky Toffee Pudding for dessert.
Yet, the Sticky Toffee Pudding had been the girls’ revenge. They had wanted to win with Ramsay’s own signature recipe and they had the perfect judges there to taste the pudding. The guest judges were Shaun from MasterChef, Shayne, and Justise from MasterChef Junior. So the guest judges had tasted everything from both sides and what had won them over above all else had been the Sticky Toffee Pudding. The judges had all said that they could eat that everyday and so they gave the win to Jordana and Christina because of that one dessert. And what was funny was that it was a dessert that Ramsay had come up so Anthony had pointed that out when his blue team lost the final match in Masterchef Celebrity Showdown.
THE END!
