Kate Ferguson: Where Are They Now?

Spoiler note: this post confirms that Kate Ferguson won season 1 of Zumbo's Just Desserts.

The very first champion of Zumbo's Just Desserts was not a pastry prodigy or an aspiring chef. Kate Ferguson was a 37-year-old mother of two from Ballarat, Victoria, working as a government claims processor, and in September 2016 she beat Canberra's Ali King in the grand final to take the show's inaugural title. Hers is one of the quieter winner stories in this genre, and this post is honest about that.

The win

Season 1 ran from August 22 to September 27, 2016 on Australia's Seven Network, and Ferguson outlasted a field of twelve dessert makers through Adriano Zumbo's punishing Zumbo Tests. The prize was substantial: $100,000 in cash, plus the honor of having one of her own creations sold in Zumbo's patisseries. Zumbo's own social channels confirmed the follow-through, announcing that her caramel slice would go on sale in his stores. Local paper The Courier celebrated her as Ballarat's dessert queen, and her win as the show's proof that a self-taught home cook could survive a format built around professional-grade technique.

After the confetti

Here is where the record gets thin, and we would rather say so than invent a bakery for her. In interviews right after the finale, Ferguson sounded charmingly unchanged: she told The Courier she was "all desserted out," had taken a break from making desserts after returning home from filming, and was looking forward to experimenting in her own kitchen again rather than announcing a business or television plans. She came across as exactly what she was cast as, a no-nonsense mum who won a cooking show and then went back to her life.

Where things stand now

Ferguson has kept an essentially private profile in the years since. Unlike season 2 champion Catherine Zhang, who built a huge public baking career, Ferguson's later life is not well documented publicly, and there is no widely reported bakery, book, or media career attached to her name. The verified story is the one from 2016: the win, the $100,000, the caramel slice in Zumbo's shops, and a Ballarat homecoming. Sometimes the winner's ending is simply that the money went home with a person who wanted a normal life, and that is its own kind of satisfying.

Her season remains lovely comfort viewing, and the show only ever crowned one other champion before ending. For the full story of both seasons at the dessert factory, including the format's infamous Zumbo Test, our Zumbo's Just Desserts guide has the details, and the season records live on the show hub.