Despite cutting her thumb and dropping a jar of flour in the opening round, East Lancashire’s Kara Crossley has made it through to the next stage of BBC Three’s Young MasterChef.

The mum-of-one, from Hapton, cooked-up a storm in the kitchen as she delighted the judges with her take on a Greek moussaka, complete with a cheeky shot of Ouzo – a homage to her time spent in Zante as a holiday rep.

Episode three of Young MasterChef aired on BBC Three last night (Wednesday January 4), and saw the 25-year-old sail through to the next round, despite a number of mishaps in the kitchen.

Speaking this morning (Thursday December 5), Kara told the Lancashire Telegraph that her progression was really “unexpected”.

She said: “With the situation of slicing my thumb open, I felt like I was panicking a bit more than the others so getting through to the next round was really unexpected.

“It was a huge sigh of relief though as I didn’t expect it at all, but I look back at the comments from the judges now and think ‘I didn’t do that bad’.”

Kara, who was one of three contestants from her heat to progress to the next episodes, said her clumsiness was “typical of her” as her family are the “clumsiest people”.

She said: “I’m just like my grandad.”

In the next round, Kara and the remaining eight contestants are tasked with making pizzas for judges Poppy O’Toole and Kerth Gumbs.

Working in teams of three, they must band together to keep their top of the range pizza ovens lit and fired up.

Each cook will be responsible for making a unique pizza with flavours of their own design, and at the end of each episode one of them will go home.

Kara went on: “The pizza round was a really good round – it was chaotic. I think there will be plenty of surprises in the next episode as I will be using things not used before.

“It was a stressful experience. I’m quite inventive with my ideas and you will see in the next episode how crazy my ideas are.”

The social media assistant says she’s had plenty of support from her family so far on her MasterChef journey, with her two-year-old daughter, Willow, enjoying seeing her mum on the screen.

She added: “They’ve been really supportive and they’re really proud. It feels so surreal now, seeing myself on the TV – I’ve got family in Spain and down south watching, and they were really surprised when I got through!”

Kara says following the show, her dream would be to open a little bistro in Hapton, but she’d also settle for a cookbook, or a chance to grow her TikTok following.

She said: “I got quite big on TikTok when I was trying to wean my daughter, so a cookbook focused on children might be good.

“I’d also like to do videos of my recipes, and hopefully I’ll put my Greek recipe on there too.

“I’m a public person and I want to get out there and show people what I’m made of.”

The next episode of Young MasterChef will air on BBC Three on Monday night.