A MASTERCHEF contestant found themselves heading home after making a disaster mistake that left viewers perplexed.
The BBC contest, fronted by Gregg Wallace and John Torode, welcomed a new batch of chefs hoping to make it through to the quarter finals but a whopping three of them were given the boot during their debut episode.
Amid the mass cull, one contestant stood out but for all the wrong reasons.
Having managed to make it through to the second of three round during the episode, contender Charlie was determined to make his mark on the cookery contest.
Charlie and his fellow amateur chefs were given the task of creating a floating island dessert.
Happy Valley's James Norton teases Tommy's 'deep hatred' in final series
The cooking hopefuls were given a basic recipe to follow and were then allowed to experiment with a variety of different flavours for the finished product.
The round was dubbed the "thinking on your feet round" given that they had to decipher there and then how they would best serve up and decorate the dish.
However, for Charlie, despite his hard efforts, a simple mix-up cost him his place in the competition.
He had created a hazelnut-liqueur custard of which his meringue sat atop complete with caramel, roasted hazelnuts, strawberries and raspberries.
The hopeful had somehow mixed up sugar with salt and ended up sprinkling copious amounts of salt on top of the sweet dish.
Judge Gregg Wallace was quick to call him out and alert him to his epic error.
The TV star commented: "I think you may have sprinkled salt on there instead of sugar because I'm picking up a little bit of salt."
In response, Charlie said: "Fingers in the wrong jar."
The moments left fans baffled that someone who had managed to work their way onto the show had made such a mistake and was unaware of it until it came to the judges trying out the dish.
One puzzled fan said: "You mixed up salt and sugar? I really hope you don't get a voting card."
His Dark Materials fans left open-mouthed after character’s shocking betrayal
Another added: "The f***ing lack of talent on display this year from 99% of people. How on Earth do you accidentally use salt in a dessert."
A third wrote after his error: "Goodbye Charlie."
As someone else pointed out that it was the second time the mistake had occurred during the BBC contest as they penned: "All you need to do to get to the quarter finals these days is know the difference between salt & sugar."
Just moments after his mix-up, Charlie was given his marching orders by John and Gregg as they were unable to look past the error of his ways.
