A professional DJ mixed up some tasty dishes to reach the knock-out stage of BBC1’s MasterChef after battling it out in the quarter final.

Lyndsay Evans, who has lived in Tyttenhanger for three years, was tasked with making either a savoury rice dish or an almond dessert alongside five other amateur cooks on April 14.

The overambitious DJ decided to make five separate tidbits on one plate - an almond milk panna cotta with dehydrated raspberries, raspberry and almond frangipane cake served on a raspberry coulis, a flaked almond tuile, honey roasted nectarines, and marzipan ice cream with raspberry sorbet.

Judges Gregg Wallace and John Torode, and restaurant critic Tracey MacLeod, were shocked by the sheer amount of work Lyndsay set herself but impressed with the high quality of her food.

John described her plate as a “cacophony of things”: “Panna cotta, cake, ice cream, sorbet, and a tuile, do not all belong together on one plate.”

Greg said: “There are always bits on here that I really admire and I, like my two friends here, are wondering why you attempted so much when it was obviously so unnecessary.”

Lyndsay said she would have been “gutted to leave” the show despite all of the pressure: “Right now I still can’t quite believe it, I have just got through, me and my crazy cooking.”

Afterwards, she explained that the recipes had to be submitted a long time before, and she had assumed her rivals were all “amazing undiscovered Michelin star chefs” and she was just trying to keep up.

The shocked DJ said it is a really fun show: “I mean, I was quite surprised I got through really, because I like to cook weird stuff and you don’t know if you are really good or not - if you do sports there are competitions you can do to see how you are against other people but not with cooking.

“I was surprised to even get on the show.”

She will next appear on April 24 in the knockout stages.

Two years ago, Colney Heath local Sarah McCready reached the semi-finals of the popular show, but failed to impress with her salmon, watercress soldiers and egg en cocotte.