MasterChef Season 6, Episode 17: Return of the Champions

Let the Battle Commence

The Battle Continues

After the Battle for the Apron concludes, the Top 22 home cooks in America will face their first Mystery Box Challenge. Each contestant is given 20 staple ingredients that anyone could find in their home and tasked with preparing a dish for the judges -- were the judges to show up at their homes for dinner. The winner of the Mystery Box Challenge will receive a significant advantage in the season's first pressure test, during which contestants must make their versions of an apple pie.

You're the Apple of My Eye

The Top 22 home cooks in America will face their first Mystery Box Challenge. Each contestant is given 20 staple ingredients that anyone could find in their home and tasked with preparing a dish for the judges -- were the judges to show up at their homes for dinner. The winner of the Mystery Box Challenge will receive a significant advantage in the season's first pressure test, during which contestants must make their versions of an apple pie.

Cinnamon Roll-er Coaster

The remaining 20 home cooks will face their first team challenge of the season at an amusement park. Once teams are decided, each team will be tasked with creating its version of an amusement park burger and fish and chips dish for thousands of amusement park guests. The winning team will be safe from elimination, while the losing team will have to face the first pressure test of the season, during which the home cooks will make 12 cinnamon rolls.

Clawing to Victory

The next mystery box challenge has the home cooks come out of their shells and prepare unique crab dishes for the judges. The home cook who prepares the best crab dish will receive a significant advantage before the next elimination challenge. Then the remaining home cooks will create their versions of sweet or savory dishes, using the same surprise ingredient of corn.

What Happens in Vegas Steaks in Vegas

In the second field challenge of the season, the home cooks will take a surprise trip to Las Vegas, where they will be split into two teams to take over Drai's Nightclub and feed 101 Las Vegas performers. The team who receives the most winning votes from the Las Vegas performer diners will be safe from the next pressure test, while the losing team will be dealt with a deuce steak contest at Gordon Ramsay's Steak. In the pressure test, the home cooks will face two steak challenges testing temperature and taste, and one contestant will be sent home.

Bring Home the Bacon

In the next challenge, it's proven that Breakfast is indeed the most important meal of the day when the home cooks are each tasked to create an elevated breakfast dish in 45 minutes. Not only will the winner have immunity in the next mystery box challenge, but they will also receive two additional advantages. Later, in the mystery box challenge, contestants must create TV dinners.

Happy Birthday MasterChef

Each team will prepare a two-course menu for the 100th episode celebration, during which VIP guests will dine on oyster and caviar appetizers and a duck breast entrée, followed by a special surprise dish by judge Christina Tosi. The losing team will face the next pressure test, in which contestants must create a three-layer birthday cake.

Gordon's Greatest Hits

The remaining home cooks will learn from the best as they enter a special taste-it-and-make-it challenge. Each contestant must recreate Gordon Ramsay's signature Beef Wellington. The home cooks with the worst dishes will compete in the next pressure test, featuring another Gordon Ramsay dish — scallops with puree of English peas, bacon, and quail eggs, finished with shaved truffles. Find out who can keep up with the master and who will be sent home for good.

Rice Rice Baby

In the next mystery box challenge, the remaining home cooks must create a rice dish in 60 minutes. The contestant with the winning dish will be featured in Family Circle Magazine and will not have to participate in the next elimination challenge. Then, in the elimination challenge, contestants will be tasked with creating dishes based on dynamic duo ingredients. Find out who will make it into the Top 10 best home cooks in America.

Moo-vers And Bakers

The Top 10 home cooks enter the Wild West when they face their next team challenge and create steak meals for 101 cowboys and ranchers. The team that receives the most winning votes will moo-ve on in the competition, while the remaining home cooks will face the next pressure test. For the pressure test the losing team will bake tarts and see who can bake their way to victory.

Family Reunion

The Top 10 home cooks will cook family style when they face their next team challenge and create family style meals for VIP diners. After each team prepares their family style meals, they are greeted by the dinner guests, their family members. Each diner will vote for one team's meal and the team with the most votes will be safe from the next pressure test. In the pressure test, the losing team home cooks must create a gnocchi-in-brown-sage-butter-sauce dish. Find out who will go home and who will move on.

A Little Southern Flare

The cooks prepare a flambé in a mystery box challenge, and the winner is safe from elimination and also gets to choose which Southern dish the contestants must make. The winner also receives two other significant advantages.

Getting A-Head in the Competition

n the next team challenge, the remaining home cooks will split into teams to prepare vegetarian meals for guests of the MasterChef restaurant. Teams will have access to any ingredients that they choose in the MasterChef pantry, as long as the dishes are vegetarian. The winning team will be safe from elimination, while the losing team must cook in the next pressure test and create delicious well-composed meals using various cuts from an animal head.

A Storm's A-Brewing

The cooks must create a dish that features coffee as one of the main ingredients; during the pressure test, the contestants team up to re-create an elaborate party platter.

The Restaurant Takeover

The remaining chefs are put into teams to take over a Los Angeles restaurant, where they have to come up with two appetizers and two entrées for dining customers. The losing team take part in a pressure test that sees them having to come up with three different pasta dishes.

Think Inside the Box

The 4 remaining contestants use special ingredients from Gordon and Graham in the next team challenge. Each team must create a unique appetizer and entrée, and create them 3 times. The losing pair face a pressure test in which they must recreate judge Christina Tosi's world-famous Chocolate Malted Layer Cake to see who will round out the Top 3.

Team Gordon Ramsay

In the next challenge, with a little help from a few other home cooks, the remaining three contestants will create dishes for 30 restaurant guests who serve an important role in the judges' culinary world. The home cook with the most number of votes will move on in the competition, while the remaining two home cooks will face the next pressure test, during which they must complete three classic MasterChef dishes. The home cook with the best dishes will move on to the finals.

The Finale

In the final challenge in the MasterChef kitchen, the Top Two home cooks will have one last chance to prove to the judges that they deserve the MasterChef title by creating a three-course meal. After evaluating the final dishes, the judges will reveal America's next MasterChef, and the deserving home cook will walk away with a MasterChef trophy, a book deal and the $250,000 grand prize.