First I took part in the local finals of the Springboard Future Chef competition in Peterborough. I had to cook a two course meal in 90 minutes. It was tricky cooking in a different kitchen to my own. The judges were really pleased with my dishes and said that I was very brave as I had aimed to do a lot in my 90 minutes. They said I was very creative with the taste of my dishes and one said "there needs to be more Christophers in the world". I was also encouraged to try to be a little more organised in the kitchen, as there were marks for this too. I was pleased to be runner up.
My second competition was at the school heat of the Rotary Young Chef Competition. I cooked 3 dishes in 2 hours. I tried hard to remember what the judges said before, being much more organised. Nearly everything ran to plan and I changed the presentation of my main course to make it look more creative. I was really happy at the end to be chosen as winner of the school heat and will be representing my school at the next stage of the competition.
The third competition of the month was amazing. It was the Teflon Diamond Standard Awards at Waitrose Cookery School. There were 1500 entries for this competition so I was really pleased to be chosen as a national finalist. It was a great opportunity to put all my new skills into practice. As I love to make sausage plaits, I decided to do my own twist on a sausage plait. I had tasted a special pasty at Gunn's Bakery in Bedford that had a sweet and savoury end. I decided to make my sausage plait with a sweet and savoury end. I used sausage, chestnuts, bacon and my own cranberry sauce at one end, and at the sweet end I used my own mincemeat and apples. I even went to our local butchers a few days before and made the sausage meat to go in the plait.When we arrived, we were given a full set of chef's whites and soon got set up. There were children aged 13-16 years from all across the country and all were doing very different bakes. It was really busy in the kitchen as there were lots of children in the same cooking area, but we all had own workstation and it was very well equipped.
Everything went to plan with my bake. The timing was good and the plait was well baked underneath. I even had chance to pipe some brandy sauce and make a sugarcraft robin to decorate the side of the bake. I was pleased with the robin as I had never made one before but thought it would look fun. Throughout the cooking I tried really hard again to be organised and at the end was praised for this, Lesley Waters also said that I scored very high for the "skills" section. The judges really liked how I had flavoured the sausages and commented on my cranberry and port sauce.
When we had finished cooking we were able to watch a lovely food demonstration led by Lesley Waters who was the head judge of the competition. She said the standard of the dishes were very high and looking at the dishes, it was amazing to see what everyone had done.
The winners and runners up were presented with their prizes and all the other national finalists received certificates and a goody bag with bakeware in it. I am really looking forward to putting it to good use. It was a really good day and I learnt lots again.
My final competition was lots of fun. It was a competition called Ready Steady Cook. I was in a team representing my scout group. We had to cook three courses on a hob top. Two of the recipes were what I had made up myself. We did panfried mushrooms as a starter, then coconut chicken curry as a main course, with flatbread and then a trifle for dessert. We got very good feedback and an excellent score which meant we were able to bring the trophy home for our scout group. I really enjoyed working as part of a team, and we will be cooking the dishes again at our next scout camp!
