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It’s the fifth and final week of the heats, and once more the judges have a set of challenges the passionate amateurs must complete in order to progress in the competition.

Nine home cooks arrive with both their dreams and ingredients ready for their first test, the Audition Round. This year’s contestants come from all over the UK, cooking a range of dishes that not only aim to challenge the palettes of the judges but make their taste buds dance too. Cooking their Family Favourite Dish and making it MasterChef worthy, the hopefuls must show John and Gregg who they are as a cook and how good they could become.

John and Gregg don’t witness them cook in the MasterChef kitchen. Instead, they taste each dish in the Tasting Room. Just like diners in a restaurant, they judge each contestant’s food solely on the plate that is put in front of them. After tasting all nine plates, John and Gregg pick their three favourite dishes, giving those cooks a well-earned MasterChef apron and immunity from cooking in the next round.

However, for the remaining six contestants, the competition is not over. Faced with an invention test, they must pull out all the stops to cook a dish – sweet or savoury – good enough to help them advance in the competition, and this time John and Gregg are in the kitchen witnessing their every move. The pressure is intense, and the stakes are high, as at the end, only four cooks can join the three already fast-tracked in the next round of challenges. For two, their MasterChef dream is over.