A passion for desserts

SOFT-SPOKEN, introverted home cook Karmen Lu stood out in MasterChef Australia season eight with her elaborate desserts, leading her to be unofficially crowned the Dessert Queen.
Lu (below) was in Kuala Lumpur recently as part of the MasterChef Australia tour. During a special event called Innovating Desserts with Karmen Lu, organised by Lifetime channel, she showed how to make her chocolate mousse cake.
Lu also tried some of our local flavours. She especially enjoyed the textures of local ­desserts like bubur cha cha and kuih lapis.
She also tasted gula melaka for the first time (which she liked), and was fascinated by bunga kantan (torch ginger) which she called “­perfumey”.
Lu admitted that she doesn’t like overly sweet desserts, and uses other flavours to balance things out.
Describing herself as a self-taught cook and baker, Lu said: “I started baking as a hobby, as a ­little girl. When I started out, I made some really, really bad cookies.”
She then learned from her mistakes, and would bring her more successful results to school, which helped her win some friends in class.
She watched the first season of MasterChef Australia during her first year at ­university, and was hooked ever since.
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Comparing season one to season eight, she said the quality of the shows had improved, and the cooking standards have greatly advanced.
She described the feeling of getting on the show as overwhelming and is greatly excited about her future as she has finally got to fulfil one of her long term dreams.
Lu said that the culinary world ­always has its food trends. “I follow the trends, but I will [put] my own twist to it in order to make it stand out.”
She pointed out that Australians are now using more and more herbs in their desserts such as rosemary, thyme and ­coriander.
She herself fell in love with the idea ­after trying a honey and thyme ice cream.
She ­encourages home cooks to experiment with ingredients.
“If it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. It is all about ­experimenting and ­having fun. Not ­everything works but you learn from that.
“Even in MasterChef, not every dish I put up is good but I learn from that, so that next time it will be good.”
A case in point is the dish that put her in the top 24 for season eight – a ­chocolate parfait with salted caramel, peanuts and popcorn ice cream.
She loves ­working with ­chocolate, and mixing it with ­other ­ingredients to give it an ­added ­dimension.
She said she ­personally ­developed a liking for dark ­chocolate, and now finds milk chocolate too sweet for her liking.

Lu studied civil engineering in university, and had thought that would be her future career.
She said: “I [then] realised that it wasn’t for me. I struggled to tell my parents and I thought they would react [negatively].
They actually surprised me, and told me to do what made me happy. That gave me confidence.”
It was this support that made her pursue her true love – ­cooking. She was working as a waitress prior to getting on the show.
She plans to open her own dessert bar that showcases Asian dessert flavours.
As for being called the ­Dessert Queen, Lu said: “That actually put a lot more ­pressure on me. I didn’t want to be just [known for my] ­desserts. I wanted to show that I could be strong in savoury [dishes] as well.
“In the end I had to pursue what I wanted, and not let that faze me.”
She said the best thing about the show was the ­camaraderie she shared with fellow contestants.
MasterChef Australia Season Eight is currently airing on weekdays at 8pm on Lifetime (Astro channel 709).