Ben splits from MasterChef
Queensland's Ben Macdonald has slipped on a posh banana split and is out of MasterChef.
Jamie, Laura, Emelia, Brent and Tracy will now battle it out during finals week of Network Ten's popular reality cooking show.
The cook on Sunday began with contestants sent mystery box ingredients by their loved ones, along with messages of support.
Macdonald's girlfriend Robyn sent him her love along with a duck, red wine, beetroot, thyme, polenta, cinnamon and goji berries.
"That was a bit of a curve ball, definitely," he told AAP.
"It was quite an intense moment to have to read a letter aloud of something that is very personal to you and means a lot."
Macdonald created a pan-fried duck dish with fried polenta, fennel, beetroot and a red wine sauce.
But the judges were unhappy with his presentation and the fatty consistency and flavour.
Macdonald was then sent into a pressure test against Laura and Jamie.
Their task was to replicate a sophisticated interpretation of a banana split set by chefs Darren Purchese, Christy Tania and Nick Palumbo.
The dish included several tricky elements like banana and coffee parfait sprayed yellow, smoked coconut and cinnamon foam and spiced banana gelato with chocolate and peanut butter `peanutella' sauce.
Macdonald had to remake his parfait after curdling the custard and then cooked his `peanutella' sauce on a high heat, causing the oil in the peanut butter to split and make the sauce oily.
But he said he felt he performed well in the challenge and wasn't necessarily expecting to be sent home.
"I definitely made a few small mistakes but I didn't think - I thought I'd done a pretty good job of it," he said.
"I thought I had a pretty good chance of staying. I wouldn't say I was shocked but I knew it was very close between all three of us and I thought any of us could have been going home."
Since leaving MasterChef, Macdonald has done work experience with Stokehouse restaurant in Brisbane and will soon launch The Hard To Find Supper Club, which will involve intimate dinners for groups of 15 to 30 people.
MasterChef returns to Ten 7.30pm (AEST) on Monday.
