The first stage of the competition involved a paper-based exercise. The students were required to design, prepare, present and photograph a contemporary style dessert, using certain ingredients selected by the chefs. The finalists were then invited to compete in the online cooking challenge against Cambridge Regional College.

Our Level 3 Professional Chef student finalists went head-to-head in a MasterChef style patisserie competition. The competition lasted just over two hours and all chefs and students were in attendance via Microsoft Teams. You could see all of the students’ well-prepped kitchens as the chefs continued to talk with each other and the students during the process.

It was good to see the online cooking challenge working so well, being the first of it’s kind for us, and how a cooking competition could be judged without being able to taste the actual food; congratulations to all staff from both colleges that made this possible.

In order to be judged fairly, the students had to show and comment on their process during the competition and submit their final entries via photograph. This included not only the final piece as a whole, but they also had to dissect it in order to show the judging panel, the inside of their confectionaries. They looked very appetizing indeed, with one resembling a profiterole tower with a cascading chocolate waterfall.

In the end Lambeth College came out victorious with student chef, Lucia, taking first place. All of the students’ creations were magnificent and the chef’s had a hard time judging.

Lambeth College student, Adrian, said, “Lockdown’s had its ups and its down, but this is one of the ups.”

Our winning team will be awarded vouchers for the purchasing of chefs clothing or equipment, from nominated wholesalers, and presented with a trophy.

This was definitely a very innovative challenge, having to compete during unusual circumstances, but these guys pulled it off and we can’t wait for the next one.