A birthday cake was ultimately the undoing for the 55-year-old reality television contestant. On Monday’s episode she failed to impress the judges with her six-layered cake with Swiss meringue buttercream – the batter drastically under-cooked.

“That is not my style of cooking, if I see something with 15 ingredients i’ll just skip straight past it and that one had 1000 of them,” she laughed.

Since Ottaway completed filming in February, she has spent time in the kitchen of the renowned Rick Stein’s restaurant at Bannisters in Mollymook with an invitation to return later this year.

“Rick’s away, he’s only here like twice a year, and when he’s here he’s having an event happening and they asked me if I wanted to help out,” she said. “He is one of my food idols.”

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The self-confessed “home style cook” also wants to see her controversial gnoccheloni to appear on supermarket shelves under her new business name Nonna G.

“You cannot buy them anywhere, they are my creation,” she said. “Six minutes from frozen and they’re done.”

The controversial dish – a cross between gnocchi and cannelloni – was used to promote the television show in the lead up to it airing. 

Ottaway will also be doing cooking demonstrations at Stockland Shellharbour and have a pop-up restaurant at Nardi’s Italian Restaurant.

She said she has been overwhelmed with support from the local community and further afield, and felt blessed to receive the most beautiful comments on her television debut.

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In total, Ottaway spent three-and-a-half months in Melbourne filming the show from last November to February and was only allowed home around Christmas.

“My understanding [of the show] previous, to this was you just go and audition for the judges, but there’s so much more involved,” Ottaway said. “But you have to cook prior to even seeing the judges, and it’s quite a lengthy process.

“I’m still proud of what I achieved because there is so much to go into it.”

Masterchef is now down to 11 contestants, with a winner expected mid-July. They recieve $250,000 and a monthly column in Delicious magazine.

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