Best Efforts Almost Take The Cake
Newcastle Herald
Wednesday December 15, 2004
APPRENTICE pastry chefs from throughout NSW put their best rye loaves and chocolate eclairs forward in a battle of the bakers at Hamilton TAFE yesterday.
It was a tall order for the Hamilton TAFE team of Cian Durbidge from Heatherbrae Pies and Brenton Brockbank from Snows Patisserie, competing for the first time.Between 7.30am and 4pm, the apprentices had to create dampers, scrolls, a chocolate display cake and choux pastries, and a display dessert from a box of mystery ingredients.Those ingredients included almond meal, raspberry puree, fresh mango, fresh chilli, pistachio nuts and star anise and were provided to the apprentices three days before the competition.With those things in mind, plus a few other basics, the Newcastle lads came up with a white chocolate and raspberry cone with a mango compote.It was an event taken seriously by Mr Brockbank, from Merewether, and Mr Durbidge, from Seaham, who had trained for three months beforehand."It's not really a regular day; we have done pretty intense training for it but it's well worth it," Mr Brockbank said.Their teacher, Gary Sewell, said he was proud of the chefs who came second after losing by just one point to the Ryde team which had competed before.
© 2004 Newcastle Herald