MARION COUNTY, FL (352today.com) – The young boy from North Central Florida competing in a television cooking show found himself in a sticky situation this week.
We’ve been tracking the progress of 11-year-old Michael Seegobin, the son of a Marion County Fire Rescue lieutenant, as he competes for the title of MASTERCHEF JUNIOR and a $100,000 prize.
This week, celebrity chef Gordon Ramsay paired the kids into teams of two to participate in a pancake race.
Before the challenge began, judge Daphne Oz gave the aspiring chefs a lesson on how to make the perfect pancake.
“Let me show you how I make a gorgeous stack of pancakes for my kids,” said Oz. “Don’t forget to grease up your griddle.”
The keys she said are getting the griddle nice and hot and to ladle the batter up from the center.
“You don’t want to crush the air out of them,” advised Oz. “Wait until the entire surface of pancake is popping with bubbles.”
That’s how you know they’re ready to flip she counseled the kids.
She instructed them to stack the pancakes three high, drizzle coulis, top with fruit and finish with a dusting of powdered sugar.
Now it’s the kids’ turn
Teammates were decided by the luck of the draw, a color-coded spatula.
Michael and Jordyn pulled red spatulas.
The young cooks had 15 minutes to make as many stacks of pancakes as they could.
“You’ll make the pancakes,” Michael directed Jordyn. “Wait, what are you going to be doing?” she asked. “Don’t worry about that yet,” he responded.
The winning pair would not only be granted immunity from elimination, they would also get to blast two judges of their choosing with pancake toppings as a reward.
“These are dirty pancakes. We can’t serve these,” said Michael as the clock ticked down. “Some are coming off ugly and ripping all over the place. Make sure you put the ugly one on the bottom,” Michael instructed his teammate.
The usually calm, cool, collected Michael appeared to feel a bit of deadline pressure this week.
“Here, plate this. Plate this. Plate this. Plate this. Just plate it, just plate it please,” said Michael with less than a minute remaining in the challenge.
“It looks like you completed 14 plates, but we’ll see how many actually count,” said Oz to Michael and Jordyn.
The stacks had to be perfect in the judges’ eyes to qualify.
|PREVIOUSLY: Michael leads the blue team to victory
Michael seemed confident.
“I think Jordyn and I have a good chance,” said Michael. “We communicated. We cooperated and best of all we put out amazing pancakes.”
When the judging was done, Michael and Jordyn’s red team were at the top of the stack with 10 perfect plates.
Before they took their place at the top of the balcony overlooking the MASTERCHEF kitchen, the dynamic duo picked chefs Ramsay and Aarón Sánchez to blast with berries.
“Jordyn made me pick Gordon. I would have picked Aarón and Tilly (Gordon’s daughter),” said Michael. “So, Gordon if you’re watching this, it wasn’t me.”
Let’s hope chef Ramsay doesn’t seek revenge on Michael next week.
Michael has developed quite the fan club at home, especially among the firefighting community. Last week, Michael cooked a surf and turf lunch for the firefighters and staff at Weirsdale Station #27.
In the next episode which airs on Monday, April 29, at 8 p.m., the kids will take dishes from their past and turn them into dishes from their future.