Icing on the cake

For the first time, India won the bronze medal at the prestigious Asian Pastry Cup 2016 competition which was held recently in Singapore, in a run up to the international World Pastry Cup contest. A team of chefs from the Academy of Pastry Arts represented India and they made a chocolate display, sugar display, chocolate cake and plated dessert to win the medal.

The winning trio of chef Dinesh Rawat, chef Mukesh Rawat and chef Amit Sinha underwent training for the team challenge. “It was a good seven months of extensive training which was executed very well under the guidance of chef Manjit Singh Gill, president Indian Federation of Culinary Associations. The team was provided training on individual as well as team basis in which not only techniques but also small tips and details were shared with us,” Dinesh, who was the team leader, tells Metrolife.

“We had final training in Academy of Pastry Arts, Malaysia for 10 days right before moving to Singapore for the final competition,” he says,

Chefs from 11 Asian countries participated in the two-day competition in which
Singapore and Malaysia secured first and second position respectively. The selection of the Indian team was done in September through India Pastry Cup . The focus while practicing was to be innovative and work on textures and techniques. But their journey till competition wasn’t smooth, as Dinesh says, “The biggest challenge was that
except Academy of Pastry Arts, India nobody came forward to provide us technical and financial support. Then procuring world class ingredients and equipments required for honing up the skills was also a big challenge as the suppliers for these were hard to find.”

According to Dinesh, their biggest take away from the competition was to “learn about the best practices followed by the chefs abroad”. “Now we can compete with the best, provided we have the right support. And another take away is that it raises the profile of pastry chefs within the chef community itself,” he says.