Jaime Horan brings Malaysian food into the mainstream on ‘MasterChef’
The content creator known as iGumdrop opens up about her transition to food media and competing on "MasterChef: Global Gauntlet"
Jaime Horan on MasterChef: Global Gauntlet
FOX
Words by Daniel Anderson
The MasterChef kitchen has welcomed everyone from home cooks to teachers and firefighters over the years. For its landmark sixteenth season, MasterChef: Global Gauntlet expands that formula even further, bringing together 20 home cooks divided into four regional teams—Europe, Asia Pacific, Africa, and the Americas—to celebrate the cuisines and cultures they call home.
Among them is Jaime Horan, better known online as iGumdrop, the content creator and Twitch streamer who built an audience of more than one million across all platforms through gaming before finding a new passion in food. Her Chinese Malaysian heritage and food memories with her dad have become the foundation of her cooking. With it, she went from earning her white apron with a wagyu beef satay and peanut sauce during auditions, to winning episode eight's World Cup-inspired challenge with a deeply personal curry and roti canai dish.
As MasterChef: Global Gauntlet took a break due to the World Cup, Horan spoke with JoySauce ahead of the show’s Wednesday return. During our conversation, she reflected on making the leap from creator to competitor, finding community among Team Asia Pacific and navigating the pressures of cultural representation.
This interview has been edited for clarity and length.
Daniel Anderson: I'd love to start with your early relationship with food. What are some of your earliest food memories growing up, and how did your dad shape your love of cooking?
Jaime Horan: Food was always my family's love language. Since I was about 4 or 5 years old, my dad was always cooking, which I think is really common in a lot of Asian immigrant households. As I got older, he'd slowly get me involved—teaching me how to boil water, letting me wrap dumplings when I was around 11. Cooking became something we did together.
He also introduced me to so many different cultures through food. His friends would bring over dishes like empanadas or jerk chicken, so I grew up surrounded by all these incredible flavors. As I got older, I realized not everyone had that experience, and that's really what sparked my passion for cooking.
DA: You've built an audience as a streamer and content creator before transitioning into food content. What inspired that shift?
JH: It was honestly a really random pivot. When I first started streaming, you weren't allowed to do anything except play games. If you stopped gaming for too long, you could actually get banned from the platform.
Eventually they introduced IRL streaming, and that opened the door for me to start doing cooking streams because cooking was something I already did every day. Once I started sharing it, I realized it wasn't just another hobby, it was one of my true passions.
I've picked up a lot of different hobbies over the years, but cooking is the one thing I could genuinely do every single day. It also connects me back to my family and my roots, so pursuing it just felt right. I started making short-form cooking content about two years ago, and it really took off. From there, I made the full transition into food content. Ironically, when I first made the switch, I actually lost followers because my audience knew me for gaming. It was definitely a leap of faith.
DA: Was that transition vulnerable for you? You were showing a completely different side of yourself than people had come to expect.
JH: Definitely. When you're streaming, you're performing in front of the camera. With cooking, you're creating something and putting it out there for the world to judge. That felt much more personal. At the same time, it was exactly what I wanted. I felt like streaming only showed one side of who I was. Even after I transitioned into food content, people were still only seeing the version of me that existed on social media.
That's actually one of the reasons I wanted to do MasterChef. Television is a completely different storytelling medium, and it lets people see a side of you that edited social media content never really can.
DA: How did MasterChef come about? Were you scouted because of your online following, or did you audition like everyone else?
JH: A lot of people assume I was scouted, but I actually applied myself—literally an hour before applications closed. I remember thinking, "Jaime, just do it. If you don't do it this year, you'll probably never do it." Then they got back to me almost immediately, within a day or two, and I couldn't believe it. It was a really raw decision on my part, but I'm so glad I took that chance.
DA: Before filming, did you do anything to prepare?
JH: The biggest thing I needed to prepare for was learning classic cooking techniques—especially French techniques—which aren't really part of how I normally cook. There were even moments during the competition where someone would mention something like "crudités," and I'd think, "What is that?" Then I'd realize it's just raw vegetables. There was definitely a learning curve.
I studied a lot, practiced constantly, and I absolutely did timed cooks. I'd give myself 60 minutes or even 45 minutes to make dishes because I knew that was going to be one of the biggest adjustments. Honestly, when I first applied, I didn't think I'd be able to do it. I just knew there was a learning curve that I'll have to reach, and I just forced myself to do it within that time frame that I had.
DA: What was the biggest surprise once filming actually began? Was there anything about the experience—from the production side or even just living through the competition—that you couldn't have anticipated?
JH: Honestly, it was how close I became with the other contestants. I didn't expect to form those kinds of relationships. As an adult, you don't really get many opportunities to make friendships that quickly and that deeply. It almost felt like summer camp in that sense. We were all going through this incredibly intense experience together, and those bonds happened really naturally.
When I first got there, I was actually pretty guarded. I've been in social media for so long that I'm used to keeping to myself, so the experience ended up being surprisingly healing because people got to know me simply as Jaime. I didn't even tell some of the cast that I worked in social media. We just became friends first.
After filming each day, we'd all meet at the little bar in our hotel lobby and spend hours talking about everything that had happened. What was really special was realizing how many similar cultural experiences we all shared. I think every one of us went into MasterChef assuming we'd be "the cultural contestant," and then we all met each other and realized, "Wait, everyone here has a story like mine."
At the same time, there was definitely a competitive side to it. We were all thinking, "Oh wow, these people can really cook." So there was camaraderie, but there was also that healthy respect for how talented everyone was.
DA: What was it like meeting the judges for the first time? Was there anyone you were especially nervous to cook for, or anyone who surprised you?
JH: I was definitely nervous. I actually felt like there might be higher expectations because I already had a following online.
But once I got into the MasterChef kitchen, none of that mattered—and I really appreciated that. It genuinely felt like I was being judged exactly the same as everyone else.
Joe (Bastianich) actually surprised me the most. People always assume he's intimidating, but he's incredibly kind and really creative with his feedback. He gives you ideas that make you think differently about your dishes. Tiffany (Derry) was probably the judge I learned the most from. She was so thoughtful and genuinely helpful. And Gordon (Ramsay) is exactly as charismatic in person as he is on television. I always assumed his one-liners were heavily edited together, but that's honestly just how he talks. He's incredibly quick and naturally funny.
DA: One thing I've heard from chefs on shows like Top Chef is that, by that point in their careers, they're usually running restaurants and aren't receiving much direct critique anymore. For you, as a home cook and content creator, what was it like suddenly having Gordon Ramsay, Joe Bastianich, and Tiffany Derry evaluating every plate?
JH: I think it's actually a little different for home cooks than it is for professional chefs. Professional chefs often come into these competitions with a very defined cooking identity. They're refining it. For us, it almost felt like we were discovering our identities as cooks while we were competing.
One of the biggest challenges was figuring out how to absorb the judges' feedback while also staying true to the cultures and cuisines we were representing. You want to learn classic techniques and improve, but you also don't want to lose the things that make your food personal. There wasn't much time to process those ideas while we were filming because it was just go, go, go every day. I think I really reflected on it after the show and realized there are so many different ways to approach cooking. That was a really valuable lesson.
DA: As a content creator, it's easy to focus on views, engagement, and numbers. Then you step into the MasterChef kitchen, where none of those things matter. Did your perspective shift?
JH: It absolutely did. As a content creator, it's really easy to obsess over the little things—a comment, a video that underperforms, the numbers. On MasterChef, none of that mattered. The other contestants were simply impressed that I'd built a social media platform, but once you're standing in that kitchen, your follower count means absolutely nothing.
If you cook something well, you cook something well. If you make a mistake, you make a mistake. That was a really vulnerable experience because I had no idea how I'd perform. I knew everyone who followed me would eventually watch the show, and I honestly didn't know whether I was going to embarrass myself. I was just so relieved to earn my apron because I genuinely don't know what I would've done if I hadn't.
DA: One challenge that really stood out was the Home Depot-themed cook, where you made your curry and roti canai. You became incredibly emotional during that challenge, and it seemed like you were putting a tremendous amount of pressure on yourself—even though you ultimately won. Can you walk me through what was going through your mind?
JH: That challenge actually caught all of us by surprise. We thought we were going to be cooking something completely different that day. When the Home Depot theme was revealed, it immediately made me think of my dad because he worked at Home Depot his entire life. There really wasn't another dish I wanted to make. The hard part was that I didn't actually have my roti canai recipe with me. I had to recreate it entirely from memory.
I was already emotional because seeing all the Home Depot imagery reminded me so much of my dad, and I hadn't talked to him in a while. Then I started second-guessing everything. I'm definitely the overthinker of the group. I was always the nervous one, and people would constantly ask me, "Jaime, why are you so nervous?" And honestly, I don't know. I've accomplished things in my life, but I'm still someone who struggles with self-doubt.
A perfect roti takes eight hours so I kept thinking, “Did I set myself up for failure?” I was like, “What if I go home making a dish that's so meaningful to me, on a challenge that's connected to my dad?" When you're cooking something that's deeply tied to your culture and your family, every smell brings you back home. It becomes incredibly emotional.
So when the judges ended up loving it and I won the challenge, I think it reminded me that there are moments where I really need to believe in myself and be proud of what I've accomplished. That was an emotional day from beginning to end.
DA: This season is unique because every competitor is representing a particular region and cuisine. Did you feel any extra pressure carrying the responsibility of representing Malaysian food, especially knowing that for many viewers this might be their first introduction to it?
JH: Surprisingly, it felt more exciting than stressful. I think if I were representing a cuisine that already had a lot of visibility in America, I might've felt more pressure because I'd wonder if someone else could represent it better. But Malaysian food doesn't have nearly the same level of exposure here, so I felt really confident in my intentions.
Even with the whole roti canai pronunciation conversation online, once I stepped back, I realized it actually introduced so many more people to the dish. Suddenly everyone wanted to know what roti canai was and wanted to try it. At the end of the day, that's exactly what I wanted.
I'm happy to take whatever comes with representing Malaysian cuisine—even if that includes criticism or extra scrutiny—because my goal is simply to get more people excited about Malaysian food.
DA: When you make your videos, does it ever feel like you're preserving part of that heritage for future generations?
JH: I think there's something really beautiful about translating what our parents taught us into a format that's accessible to younger generations.
Long term, that's actually one of the things I'm most passionate about. I'd love to create more educational cooking content. What's funny is I don't necessarily want to teach people the way recipes are traditionally written. I want to teach people the way our parents taught us—through instinct. Cooking is so much about your senses.
People often think recipes have to be followed exactly, but they don't realize that if a dish needs more acidity, there are lots of different ways to achieve that. You can adapt. You can adjust.
Cooking is almost like working out. There's not like a specific workout that's going to give you the perfect body, and you can make adjustments that will work for you. Cooking doesn't have to be so recipe-dependent, and I think that's what makes it fun.
That actually ties back to MasterChef because in that kitchen you can't rely on recipes. You have to trust your instincts and your palate. Learning to cook that way gave me a lot more confidence.
Published on July 13, 2026
Words by Daniel Anderson
Daniel Anderson is a disabled Chinese American adoptee based in Seattle. His freelance writing specialties include K-pop, entertainment, and food. He believes that any restaurant can be a buffet, and the key to success is to take a nap each day. Follow his adventures on Instagram @danzstan.