Bilton to bring big flavours in MasterChef quest

Tauranga's Hayley Marie Bilton has won a place in MasterChef's top six. Photo / Frances Oliver Photography Ltd.

Papamoa resident Hayley Marie Bilton dreams of opening a cooking school in the Bay one day, but her first goal is winning MasterChef.

The 31-year-old has made it to the final six for this year's Masterchef competition.

Meeting former MasterChef winner Nadia Lim had been the best part of the show.

"She has the same values in food that I do and is very similar with what I want to do in Tauranga when I get home."

Ms Bilton hopes to open a cooking school and teach Kiwis to "buy smart".

The food contest has seen contestants from across New Zealand competing in weekly challenges to try to take out the grand prize of the coveted MasterChef New Zealand title and contract as a chef and recipe developer with My Food Bag.

Ms Bilton said she never imagined she would make it to the top six and had been equally excited to get into the top 16 contestants of the show.

"Then I worked my goal down, to 10 and now I am starting to get to the stage where maybe I could do this.

"I'm starting to believe in myself. I have always doubted it. I still get nervous cooking for others ... "

Ms Bilton said Richard Harris from Christchurch, "a bit of a dark horse", would be her biggest competition in the show now.

Being in the bottom two and three for a couple of rounds had been one of the lows of being on the reality television show but had pushed her to step up her game, she said.

"It takes one bad dish to send you home, so I am glad I had second chances."

In this week's competition she won dish of the day for her fennel-crusted venison loin with plum, red cabbage, broad bean salad and plum jam.

Reading different cooking books, practising techniques with other competitors and being able to bounce ideas off them had helped improved her cooking skills over the last several weeks, she said.

Ms Bilton said having to prepare and cook desserts was still the toughest thing in the contest.

"There is just so much science behind it, if it doesn't go right. You've only got an hour and it could need an hour-and-a-half. I'm much more of a savoury girl. I don't even eat dessert so it's hard getting my head around that. I just hope we don't get one of those pressure-test dessert ones because I may as well walk away."

Ms Bilton said the biggest thing she had learnt from the show so far had been putting different flavours together and not being scared to do so.

"I've learnt to trust my own flavours and believe in myself," she said.

"If I don't want to be back in that bottom two I will need to bring out some of those big flavours [to win]."