A 4AM shopping trip snatched victory from the jaws of a double baking disaster and helped an 11-year-old land a slot on BBC'S Junior MasterChef.
Joe Stuckey appeared on last week's broadcast battling three other hopefuls in a challenge stage to make homemade fish fingers, tartar sauce and chips, and then on to lamb cutlets, colcannon, baby carrots and blackcurrant jus for his own recipe.
Joe, who lives with parents Julia and Geoff Stuckey in Ashdon Close, Hutton, may have narrowly missed out on a quarter-final slot – blamed in part on a misconceived soggy batch of chips – but that has only made him more determined to make it in the highly competitive world of professional cooking.
He said: "To be a judge on MasterChef would be brilliant but failing that I would really want to have my own restaurant. I want to make cooking a career. I want to be a chef.
"But then again I don't have a choice. It's the only thing I'm good at."
It was the youngster's hearty resolve at home that helped him show off his cooking skills in front of chef John Torode.
Just 32 hopefuls managed to get through to the final stages ahead of more than 1,000 applicants.
After missing the application window for last year's series, Joe was determined to shine for this season's run of programmes.
And so after applying via the BBC website, followed up by a telephone interview, the aspiring chef was asked to impress a BBC panel with some of his cooking.
He was asked to appear before a panel of judges at a production studio in Camden Lock – and bring with him a dish that would impress.
He chose to create an Italian cake, rich with marscarpone – a recipe that had already seen him triumph at a cookery competition at his former school Shenfield St Mary's.
However, the first attempt made by the youngster, who is now a Becket Keys pupil, ended in a burnt sponge. His second creation went horribly flat, due to the wrong type of chocolate.
But so determined was Joe to have a crack on the children's version of the popular cookery programme, he travelled to an all-night supermarket, when most people were in bed, to pick up the all-important ingredients he needed to start over again.
He has his grandmother to thank. She made the late-night dash with him to the store on Gallow's Corner, near Romford.
When he arrived at the studio the sponge was still warm.
Joe, added: "Although I was a bit disappointed not to get through to the next stage, it was a great experience. Just to get through to the first stage and on to TV was great in itself.
"To be fair TJ, who won it, deserved it in the end."
John Torode said of Joe's lamb dish: "I really enjoyed the flavours, the mixture of the lamb with the cabbage spring onions and potato, it was really wonderful."
His mum Julia said: "He was a bit crushed when he didn't make it through, but he's okay now.
"The thing is he's passionate about it.
"Cooking is all he talks about. He lives and breathes it."
