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.

Food critic Melissa, 39, comforted Therese by saying she was ‘brave’ and had won her ‘utmost respect’.

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

Therese looked upset as she presented her dish to the judges, then explained how it had all gone wrong. 

‘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. 

‘I could not serve it.’  

During Sunday’s episode, 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 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 at 7.30pm on Channel 10