MasterChef judge Melissa Leong comforts crying contestant Therese Lum after her epic dessert fail

MasterChef judge Melissa Leong had nothing but kind words for contestant Therese Lum on Wednesday night, who was on the verge of tears after a cooking disaster. 

Therese, 31, failed to make a macadamia ice cream for her complicated dessert dish and instead was forced to serve the judges a crumble she had made to go on top. 

Melissa, 39, comforted Therese saying that she was ‘brave’ and ‘had her utmost respect.’

‘It takes a It takes a great deal of bravery to front up without the key element of your dish and be here and stand here and handle it with the grace that you are,’ Melissa said. 

She sweetly added: ‘And you have my utmost respect.’ 

Therese, upon delivering her crumb to the judges, was upset as she told them about her dessert fail. 

‘The ice cream just didn’t turn out, I got too excited with the macadamias and put too much in, and the texture was just not right,’ she said. 

She added: ‘I could not serve it.’  

During Sunday’s episode meanwhile, Pete Campbell narrowly avoided elimination. 

But fans and Pete himself were left stumped when he had to cook quail, but first decide which meat was the actual bird after being faced with various and similar options. 

‘There’s a few different birds there, I know which one is a quail,’ he confidently said to begin with.

But it wasn’t long before the Pete was forced to admit, ‘I really don’t know my game.’ 

MasterChef Australia continues Thursday night from 7.30pm on Ten.