Australian 'Junior MasterChef' winner revealed

Greta Yaxley has won Australian Junior MasterChef 2011.

The 11-year-old girl from Perth, who went up against 12-year-old Jack from Queensland in the two-part final, was announced as the winner of the second series of the reality television show after challenges from celebrity chefs Donna Hay and Tetsuya Wakuda

After the first round, when the duo had to create a fruit dessert for Hay in one hour, Yaxley found herself in the lead by three points.

In the second challenge, a pressure test where the finalists had to re-create a tian of spanner crab with dash stock and tofu for Wakuda, Yaxley got a string of perfect 10 scores from judges Gary Mehigan, George Calombaris, Anna Gare and Matt Moran, with Wakuda describing her dish as "beautifully balanced".

After the result was announced, Yaxley said: "I feel, like, amazing! I told myself don't get your hopes up, but here I am! This has been the most amazing experience of my life. I want to continue with food and show the world how much I love it."

Runner-up Jack added: "I'm very proud of what I achieved. So many kids applied to be part of this show, and I came second! I have loved every minute of it, but the most important thing I leave with are great memories and plenty of new friends."

This series of Junior MasterChef has been widely criticised, first for failing to achieve high viewer ratings, and secondly because the father of one of the contestants claimed that the challenges are all "staged".

Calombaris admitted earlier this year that he is not sure how long the success of the cooking competition can last.

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> Australian 'MasterChef' 2012 auditions kick off in Sydney