The Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie, or World Pastry Cup, will take place at the Sirha trade show at Eurexpo Lyon on 25-26 January 2015.
The UK team – including chocolate specialist Johnson, sugar specialist Javier Mercado and ice-cream specialist Andrew Blas– has begun its final preparations for the event and is set to fly to Lyon with coach Martin Chiffers later this week.
The trio has been selected to compete on the second day of the gruelling competition, and will be tasked with creating a variety of desserts live in front of an international jury and an audience of 2500 pastry enthusiasts.
Johnson, who stormed to victory in the 2013 UK Pastry Cup and 2014 European Pastry Cup, said he is confident the UK team will perform to the best of its ability at the international event, with final preparations going well.
“We have just had the final run through this weekend, which was really positive. We have a few final bits to work through this week but everything is pretty much in place,” he told BigHospitality.
“We are going into it knowing that there is always strong competition, but we are positive we will do the best we can, and that our preparations have been good.
“These competitions are a long journey and we have all learnt an awful lot along the way. We are really excited to get there now and show what we can do.”
Coupe du Monde de la Patisserie
The biannual Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie is the only contest organised by professionals in the pastry trade for pastry chefs, and features 21 teams from five continents.
Cooking in 11 contest test kitchens within the 8000 sq m gastronomic arena at Sirha, the teams are scored for taste, work method, time keeping, organisation, skill and presentation.
The 2013 World Pastry Cup team - consisting of Mercado, Nicholas Belorgey and Nicholas Bouhelier – took ninth place, which Chiffers said was a ‘disappointing’ result given the high standard of the UK entry.
BigHospitality will exclusively be reporting live from the final of the Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie in Lyon - providing all the results and reaction, giving a behind-the-scenes look at the competition and investigating how more UK chefs can be encouraged to choose a career in pastry.