Three women will battle it out against each other to be this year’s MasterChef champion in the first all-female final in the show’s history.
Irini, Jilly and Delia fended off competition from dozens of other home cooks to make it this far in the competition, including Geoff, who left in the penultimate episode of the BBC One show.
Thursday’s programme saw the final four contestants whittled down to three after each recreating one of renowned chef Raymond Blanc’s dishes, having been mentored by him at his Oxfordshire restaurant Belmond Le Manoir Aux Quat’Saisons.
They were also tasked with creating one exceptional dish for MasterChef judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace to showcase their growing culinary talents.
Geoff fell at the final hurdle, leaving Irini, Jilly and Delia to compete in the final.
Jilly, a 42-year-old teacher from Edinburgh, said she is surprised to have made it to the final.
“I have always had confidence that I was a decent home cook, but you realise very quickly in this competition that there are other excellent cooks out there,” she said.
“There were lots of cooks who could have made it to this stage, but I was able to hold my nerve and have a bit of luck along the way, and here I am!”
Irini, who is originally from Crete and now lives in Cumbria, said she has learnt more about herself than she thought she would throughout the competition.
The 61-year-old retired banker said: “I never thought that the intensity of the competition would bring to the surface personal issues or characteristics.
“For example, the inability to accept praise or the definition of perfection from just two people – and that it would force me to deal with them and resolve them.”
Delia, a 28-year-old police officer from Kent, said she was “extremely surprised” over her success in the series because she has not been as consistent as other contestants, and that she has “scraped through a couple of times”.
She added that she would be “happy with any of us winning”, adding: “They are great ladies.”
The three home cooks will have to push themselves to their limits to create the best three dishes of their lives to convince the judges that they deserve to be crowned the MasterChef champion for 2019.
The MasterChef final airs at 8.30pm on Friday on BBC One.
