Pastry Team UK kick off Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie competition

22 January 2017 by
Pastry Team UK kick off Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie competition

The UK Pastry Team will be the first to present their dishes at this year's Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie at the Sirha exhibition in Lyon, France.

The competition, which is spread across two days (22 and 23 January), will see a total of 22 countries battle for the crown of World Pastry Team.

Today, the UK will be up against Mexico, Belgium, Argentina, Tunisia, Singapore, Indonesia, Malasia, Japan, Brazil and France.

Competing tomorrow will be Algeria, India, Sweden, Morocco, Switzerland, South Korea, Denmark, Chile, Egypt, the USA and Taiwan.

Chile, India and Indonesia are competing for the first time.

The team includes captain and ice sculptor Andrew Blas, executive pastry chef at the hotel Café Royal; chocolate candidate Chris Zammit, pastry chef at Camilleri Kitchen, East Sussex; and sugar candidate Florian Poirot, chef-owner of FP Macaroons in York.

This will be Zammit and Poirot's first time at the competition.

Supporting the team is Joakim Prat, pastry chef at Maitre Choux; Dale DeSimone, executive pastry chef at Grosvenor House hotel; and Chris Seddon from Coutts. They have been shadowing the team during the training period, offering assistance and learning the skills in order to become the next potential Pastry Team UK candidates.

This saved the team around £5,000 and months of training. The money has been put toward improving their kitchen set up including new cupboards, trolleys (supplied by Rex Martin) and an ice tool box.

In October 2015, Poirot was named as the winner of the UK Pastry Open at the Restaurant Show, at Olympia, London.

Each team has ten hours to create a chocolate dessert, a frozen fruit dessert and 24 identical desserts served on a plate. The chocolate desserts must be included in a sugar showpiece; while the frozen dessert must be included in an ice sculpture.

Last year saw the introduction of a chocolate showpiece, which must be made using a 25 kilogram block of Valrhona chocolate.

A panel of judges, including UK team president Martin Chiffers, will mark the various pieces made across the two days. The results will be announced tomorrow. Prizes will be given to first, second and third place alongside a range of special awards for team spirit, innovation and best promotional poster.

Chiffers hopes that the team will make it to the podium. He said: "It's not out of our sights. There have been many challenges this year but we have pushed on and overcome what has been in our way. The team have been training to produce precise work within a strict time limit - as I have come to learn, timing is everything.

"Every team in the top seven is big competition for us. Anything can happen today. We need to be sharp and on the game."

La Coupe du Monde de la PÁ¢tisserie was launched in 1989 by Gabriel Paillasson who was inspired by the Bocuse d'Or competition, which also takes place at the Sirha exhibition.

UK wins highest ever Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie place >>

Florian Poirot wins overall at UK Pastry Open 2015 ahead of Lyon 2017 >>

Official UK Pastry Team announced for 2017 PÁ¢tisserie World Cup >>

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