Meet our newest Sponsor! KitchenAid

KitchenAid have come on board as a gold sponsor for the Australian team's effort to Lyon!

The team have received a new KitchenAid Commercial Bowl Lift Mixer and will be putting it to the extreme  test by producing macarons, 3 x entremet and 18 plated desserts in just four hours.

Says Team Coach, Dean Gibson, "The results will be posted on the blog for those professionals wanting to see this KitchenAid Commercial machine maxed out. As a professional I know what I would want to see before I brought one of these, considering the reputation and indestructibility of the heavy duty KitchenAid, I am so excited to take this new one for a test drive."

For more information: www.petermcinnes.com.au

A Lesson in Ice

In an effort to present to the world the strongest Australian team ever to compete at the World Pastry Cup,  Team Pastry Australia has again worked with Dutch Pastry Chef Jeroen Goossens last week in Australia. His expertise and experience  in all the skill areas in this competition including chocolate and ice master pieces gives the Australian team its best chance to be competitive.

Dean Gibson, team coach, said ”Jeroen is one of the very few professionals in the world that can master chocolate, degustation and ice, he was instrumental in our planning to go and win the Asian Pastry Cup in Singapore which was the qualifying competition for the World Pastry Cup in Asia”.

Over the week of intense training Jeroen designed and trained ice competitor Barry Jones, the team plans to include Jeroen in the final training prior to the competition in January. 

Gibson said of the ice training, “we have contracted Jeroen because he is the best at preparing pastry teams and he knows the Australian team having been involved from the start. It is interesting that we would bring Jeroen from the Netherlands to Australia to do ice carving and it would be great to have the Dutch pastry chefs traveling to the World Cup to support Australia next year”.

Team Pastry Australia is also looking for Dutch sponsors to support the training planned in the Netherlands to give the Australian team its best chance to compete against the big teams at next year’s Coupe du Monde in Lyon.

The Daily Telegraph

We've been featured in the Daily Telegraph, one of Sydney's leading papers!

Chocolate sculptures get tongues wagging in Coupe du Monde, or World Pastry Cup as it is commonly known...

By Melissa Matheson

• September 28, 2012

IT'S the most delicious championship of them all - the Coupe du Monde, or World Pastry Cup - and the Australian team has created Sydney's skyline in nothing but chocolate for a shot at the title.

The Australian Pastry Team won the Asian Pastry Cup in Singapore earlier this year with a chocolate sculpture of the Sydney Harbour Bridge, Opera House and even fireworks - all made with chocolate.

Next stop is the Coupe du Monde in France in January, but before they fly-off, the team will show hungry onlookers just what it takes to make the 1-2metre sculpture with a full rebuild at Josophan's Fine Chocolates store on King St in the CBD today.

Store owner Jodie Van Der Velden said the Aussies will be up against the "best of the best'' in the cup and the judging will be tough.

"Every component of it is chocolate - it's also held together with chocolate,'' she said.

"If you can make it look like you're defying gravity then that will score you highly. There's not allowed to be any framework in it.''

In order to hold it together, the chocolatiers work with heated chocolate to join the pieces together and then cool the "chocolate cement'' quickly to form a tight, smooth bond.

The Australian team's training can range from 40 to 80 yours per week in the lead up to a big competition.

"That's the breath-taking thing, especially in competitions where you have 20 people and they're all working together and they get towards the end of it and you hear that dreaded sound and it all collapses,'' Ms Van Der Velden said.

While the team will be at its busiest between 12noon and 2pm today - the perfect time for lunchtime dessert - the chocolate sculpture may not taste so good.

"They're art really, they're a sculptural art piece, rather than an eating piece,'' Ms Van Der Velden said.

"That being said, I've got a lot of people who have tried to take a bit off my chocolate tree.''