Tonight’s MasterChef pressure test promises to be the longest, toughest and most intricate that the contestants have faced this season – and even the briefest glimpse at the dish tells you why.

Created specifically for MasterChef by Christy Tania, who recently took up the position of Executive Pastry Chef at The Langham Melbourne, Mistique is a perfectly formed cake with two different glazes, topped with an orange chocolate sable, blue chocolate sphere and two types of tempered chocolate that need to be tempered at different heats for decoration.

The cake, which is presented in a smoked glass dome, consists of a caramel milk chocolate mousse, vanilla marshmallow, passionfruit curd, 72 per cent chocolate crumb and a banana milk chocolate brownie. It looks like something out of Game of Thrones.

The contestants will have four-and-a-half hours to make the dish, following the recipe’s 65 steps to create its 17 different elements.

Tania, who was approached to invent the dish back in February, said the brief from the producers was simple. “They said, ‘Make it as difficult as you can,’” she said. “They told me to go crazy.”

Tania trained at the Ducasse Institute in Lyon, worked in the pastry section at the Ritz Hotel in Paris, and then in the pastry sections at Vue de Monde and Jacques Reymond. She said she wanted to create something for the contestants that was both theatrical and eye-catching.

“The advice I gave them was to follow the recipe: to do things once and do them right,” she said.

While the dessert only takes Tania an hour-and-a-half to complete, she said the pressures on the contestants are rather different to those she faces in the kitchen.

“It’s very difficult in that environment,” she said. “You’re pressed for time, you’ve never read the recipe before, and you don’t even know what sort of thing you’re going to be cooking before I come in and show you.”

Despite this, the contestants impressed her, she said.

“Taste-wise it was amazing,” she said. “They came very, very close to mine in terms of flavor, texture and everything. It’s really commendable, actually. If you put professional chefs under that sort of pressure, many of them wouldn’t be able to do it.”

Tania said she is hoping to offer a smaller version of Mistique at The Langham in the coming weeks.

MasterChef continues Sunday to Thursday at 7.30pm on Ten.