Contest hot as Hayley makes it through

Hayley Marie Bilton has been given a place in MasterChef's top six and is seen here with judge Al Brown. Photo / Supplied

Rotorua's Hayley Marie Bilton dreams of opening a cooking school in the region one day, but her first goal is winning MasterChef.

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

The now-Papamoa resident said 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 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 New Zealand competing in weekly food challenges to try to win the 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, who is "a bit of a dark horse", would be her biggest competition in the show.

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.

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.

"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 ... 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."

What is up for grabs?

As well as the coveted MasterChef New Zealand title, the winner takes home a new Skoda Octavia RS wagon, a Belling Richmond range cooker and rangehood valued at $9000, a contract as a chef and recipe developer with My Food Bag and a year's worth of My Food Bag recipes and food deliveries, $2000 worth of kitchen products courtesy of Stevens Homewares and an exclusive cookbook deal with Allen and Unwin.