pastry

PRESSURE

=reward

There are many great competitions in the UK calendar for the countries passionate and dedicated pastry chefs to push, stretch and strive for perfection, and to achieve the ultimate goal. How far it will carry them? Hopefully all the way to the top of the world stage. Such events as Coupe de Monde Patisserie, and World Chocolate Masters are two major events which raise the profle of our craft and let the pastry world know what the UK’s Patissiers and Chocolatiers can do. There are also junior interests with the Junior Chocolate Masters, and Junior Sugar Championship. Here younger passion can be nurtured, showcased, realised and mentored to build onto the main events bringing the passion and the skill to the next generation is the way we can succeed at the higher level. What does it take to be a contender in such a prestigious event? Having spoken to Barry Johnson Captain of the UKPastry Team 2015 here is what he had to say; I was elated to win the UK selection and the Best Taste Award. I hadn’t entered the competition with any expectations to win or let alone be selected to represent my country. I did it to challenge myself and improve my own chocolate skills. I think it only sank in the next morning when I turned my ‘phone on to over a hundred messages of congratulations from friends and family. My working life is always very busy and at the time running a small team at Rococo Chocolates didn’t really enable me to use work time for practice. This meant many long nights and every weekend for practice in the last few months running up to the event. I wanted to commit as many hours as I could so I could achieve my best. I have a very supportive girlfriend who kept normal life going which was a massive support.

For the Coupe du Monde, the training was more focused towards the last 6 months in the run up to the competition; this is where it really got intense, and we felt the pressure. The whole team took a couple of days of for Christmas but worked through New Year making changes and practicing, tweaking here, and adding there to make our pieces as strong as possible. We were very lucky that my employer Rococo Chocolates supported the team by letting us use their kitchen facilities out of work hours. My life was very much devoted to the European Cup and the Coupe du Monde for 18 months, the training was intense at times meaning on top of a full time job I was putting in every evening and weekend for training. Although I was putting in extra hours wherever I could I believe in all honesty we could have done more practicing/training, however we all committed as much time and efort into the training for the competition as we physically and mentally could. I don’t think you can ever do too much training, covering every eventuality is all part of the training, we tried to make our mistakes in our timed run through but none of us could foresee for example that the ice block would break clean in half on the day – who can foresee that! When you are training for such a huge competition it defnitely tests not only your skills but also your physical and mental attitude at the same time. Having a team of creative and passionate people there will always be some diferences of opinion. Naturally not everything always goes to plan but you have to try and focus on the most important parts. We all worked together to try and keep each other positive which in a group environment is important. The hardest part of the competition was keeping my focus and keeping up the same pace for 10 hours. The arena was empty for the frst few hours so this gave me time to settle into the rhythm before the noise and excitement of the supporters started to build. At the height of the competition the temperature was 25C and the noise and atmosphere electric. Trying to block this out and focus on the task in hand was probably one of the hardest parts of the competition. Before the competition started, I have to say I was extremely nervous during the morning, I hadn’t slept particularly well and had been running through the plan in my head all night. I knew though what would be would be and just had to focus on the job in hand and stick to the plan. Once the intensity of the 10 hours had fnished I have to say I felt little relieved if I’m honest. We presented the bufet with seconds to spare and got a great cheer from our supporters and the crowd. We had built in lights, smoke and music into our display so it was all very dramatic. We were all totally ecstatic, exhausted and full of emotions to have fnished, especially with the problems we had encountered during the day. After the clearing down process it was great to see our families and supporters that had travelled over to support us. The best part was defnitely fnding out we had placed 6th in the world – the highest ever placing for the UK team. We celebrated into the night but the only one tiny regret I had was that we forgot to get a team photo with the completed bufet!

Thanks Barry for your insight into your experiences in the Coupe de Monde UK team. Believing in your team, theme and yourself, is crucial for the success of the training, and competition, if you’re competing in a team discipline then it is important you are all on the same page going the same direction. If one team member is trying to take things a diferent direction then it just doesn’t work. Of course it is important there are opinions and the creativity is fowing to achieve the best possible result, but in the end the right decisions are reached. Faced with certain tasks and challenges the Candidate/s must be able to work within an allotted time frame depending on the theme to produce skilful creative show pieces, entremets, and plated desserts using the very best of the skill set. The fne line is to not to bite of too much than you can chew, so to be able to fnish strongly with everything completed as planned. Keeping the theme uncomplicated and straight forward without being too safe, but on the other hand not being too experimental and too edgy that the brief is lost or diluted in translation. You need to convince the judges with your interpretation of the theme connecting them on an emotional level by mastering your chocolate or sugar work executing with cleanliness, sharpness, preciseness and making sure that all your colleges and individual pieces blend well together and ft to make one fowing structure made up from many diferent pieces. Training naturally is a key part of the preparation, depending on when the selections are. You may have up to 10 months to a year to prepare, practice and train, what sounds like a long period of time can actually go very fast between your day job, family Anything can happen on the day, I guess to some to extent you are in the lap of the God’s, no matter how your preparation has gone, or how long you’ve trained for. Faced with every eventuality from transport issues, equipment problems to working conditions you have to focus and deal with what gets thrown at you, but hopefully everything goes to plan! It is great that the candidates are now open to exposure through social media and the general industry awareness which has been raised boosts their profle and skills trying to inspiring pastry chefs to get to know what going on and to want to compete. It also shows frst-hand what is required to be able to reach the top in the event. This can only be an inspiring and motivating thing. Also showcasing the event in itself boosts popularity; it is fantastic to be able to see what has been happening, check out who has done what and see what the levels are from other countries. Exposure like this is rewarding to the feld of Patisserie in the UK, hopefully to encourage youngsters, or individuals who are already in the industry to be more aware of what it takes to be able to compete on the world stage, and to feel proud and passionate about representing your country.