‘MasterChef Australia’ 2016 recap and spoilers: Girl power won over the punters and their purses; underpricing costs Mimi’s team to lose

An extremely intense team challenge was the centre of Network Ten’s “MasterChef Australia” Season 8 episode 19. On May 25, the contestants cooked their hearts out for a fete that made them feed thousands of hungry customers, all in the name of charity. Unlike in the previous episodes, the home cooks’ fate did not rest on the hands of judges Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris and Matt Preston, as well as guest chef Nigella Lawson, but on the amount of money the teams raised. At the end of the challenge, the blue team led by Mimi Baines fell a couple of hundred dollars short, sending them straight to elimination.

Mimi, 26, will be forced to face head to head with her teammates for a daunting pressure test. She’ll fight for a spot in the competition with Con Vailas, Matt Sinclair, Elise Franciskovic, Charlie Sartori and Brent Carter.

Spoiler Alert! This article contains "MasterChef Australia" Season 8 spoilers. Read only if you want to know more about it.

Network Ten posted a sneak peek of Thursday night’s episode, wherein the losing team swaps over their blue aprons to black. On the first round of the pressure test, the contestants find a generous spread of decadent cakes in front of them. They each have to guess the kinds of cakes, and the first three to get them wrong will be sent to round two.

In the elimination challenge, the three amateur chefs have to bake the best cake they’ve ever done in their lives to survive another day. The trailer shows Brett admitting that he’s not confident about his dish, leaving fans wondering whether the 43-year-old airline captain is the next person to go home.

“MasterChef Australia” Season 8 recap

The three teams were instructed to prepare at least one savory dish and two dessert plates within two hours at the “MasterChef Australia” kitchen. They then headed to the Melbourne Showgrounds, a few metres away, to serve thousands of ravished punters. At the end of all the mayhem, the teams raised $17,902, which would all go to the Royal Children’s Hospital in Melbourne.

Heather Day led an all-girl yellow team, and it appeared that they were working efficiently, until some of the trays loaded with strawberry jam shattered. Fortunately, they thought ahead of preparing more than what they needed so they had buffer to use. They also suffered a setback when Chloe Bowles’ blondies took more time to cook than expected, and the team had to make people wait for them to arrive. It was a lucky day for the yellow team, as the customers waited patiently. The judges also raved about all their dishes, composed of blondies with raspberry jam and cream, rocky road popcorn and sweet potato salad. In addition to raising the most money, amounting to $6,236, they also had the top-selling dish, the rocky road popcorn.

Over on the blue team, Harry decided to replicate the success of his brookies from the previous episode. On Tuesday, Nigella and Matt chose his midnight snack made of dark chocolate brookies with Frangelico cream, sending him to the immunity challenge against Chef Lachlan Colwill.

[READ: "‘MasterChef Australia’ 2016 recap and spoilers: Hard-headed Harry fails to win immunity with his Christmas on a plate"]

From the onset, Nigella and Gary expressed their doubts about the recipe, and even Harry’s teammate Cecilia Vuong wasn’t sure if it’s the right dish for the event. Harry showed another stubborn streak and stood his ground. That is, until Gary pointed out at him that making the brookies was taking too much time. “You’re in trouble,” Gary warned. At that point, it finally dawned on Harry that he should change course and opted to do chocolate chip cookies instead.

Whilst Harry’s team overcame that hurdle, they faced another one during the actual service. Their Asian chicken salads were sold out in minutes, and Harry had to run to the “MasterChef Australia” kitchen to make more. Apart from the salad and the brookies, the blue team prepared chocolate chip cookies and scones with jam, which in total sold for $5,892. They managed to raise a couple more hundreds than the blue team, leading them to safety.

At first, it looked like all systems go for the blue team led by Mimi. Brett was the first one to arrive at the fete and started serving. When his other teammates came to help, he even walked outside the stall to sell the cupcakes. However, the team’s crucial mistake was pricing their dishes too low. It was too late in the game to change anything, however. They found out that their prices are considerably less than the other teams’ prices with only an hour left of selling. Whilst their chocolate cupcakes earned positive feedback from all the judges and Nigella, their frittata did not perform as well. Hearing their team called last was a shock to the blue team members, which was quickly replaced by the fear of elimination. Frontrunner Matt Sinclair vowed he’ll give it everything he’s got to stay in the competition.

Find out what happens next week to “MasterChef Australia,” and stay tuned for episode spoilers. “MasterChef Australia” Season 8 airs every Sunday to Thursday at 7.30pm on Ten.