Kadeena Cox has won Celebrity MasterChef 2021, taking the crown of this year's celebrity version of the popular cooking contest.
Throughout, Cox has surprised and impressed both judges and famous guest chefs with her culinary know-how and presentation skills. In order to secure her position as the winner, she had to see off competition from fellow contestants Joe Swash and Megan McKenna.
Speaking about her win, Cox said: "I'm just buzzing. This smile is not disappearing from my face for a long time. I'm proud of myself for doing it, I didn't change who I was, I learnt along the way, but I was still Kadeena right until the end.”
Cox's winning menu began with a starter of torched salmon marinated in lime juice and caviar, tempura prawn crowned with crab meat mayonnaise, asparagus salad and a Bloody Mary granita. For her main course, Cox presented a French trimmed rack of lamb, Caribbean curried goat pie, roasted carrots, spinach, silver skin onions and a lamb curry sauce, while her dessert was an indulgent Choux au Craquelin, filled with mascarpone whipped cream and showered with a hazelnut praline crumb and tempered chocolate.
The Celebrity version of the show is in its 15th year and is just one of various versions under the MasterChef umbrella, which also includes kids and professional spin-offs. Millions of viewers tuned into this year’s finale, which looked a little different to previous series, as it was filmed amid the ongoing Covid pandemic. Consequently, this year’s batch of famous faces mostly stayed in the MasterChef studio, with well-known chefs joining them each week, rather than the traditional format of the celebrities visiting the chef’s own restaurants. Celebrity chefs who appeared during the series include Tom Kerridge, Nieves Barragan and Calum Franklin.
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To secure the MasterChef crown, Cox and her two other competing finalists were tasked with cooking and presenting a flawless three-course meal to long-time judges John Torode and Gregg Wallace. The challenge was the celebrities last chance to prove that they had what it takes to be crowned Celebrity MasterChef Champion 2021.
As with the regular version, the winner of Celebrity MasterChef walks away with the title and the famous trophy to proudly display on their mantelpiece. Many of the contestants from the show’s regular series go on to open their own restaurants or pen a cookbook, but the celebrity winners tend to just enjoy the renewed boost of their profile.
In other cooking competition news, Tom Kerridge has been announced as part of the new judging line-up for Great British Menu.