Where did it all start? How did you fall in love with cooking, pastry and chocolate?

Some of my first and most cherished memories from childhood are in the respective kitchens of my grandparents and watching, helping (probably hindering), and tasting (the best bit). I’m sure like many others they can remember being handed the spoon by their nan, to eat the batter off and ending up covered in cake mix or the excitement, waiting for cakes to come out the oven and cool just enough, so we were allowed to eat them. The nostalgic feeling from childhood of the smell of cakes in the oven, licking the bowl clean and food bringing family together fills me with joy. I didn’t always believe I wanted to be a pastry chef however, it is only upon reflection now I realise these childhood memories have a fond place and could be one of the reasons I became a pastry chef. I then went on to take food tech as a GCSE and while looking for post 16 options discovered the Claire Clark academy for
patisserie excellence in Milton Keynes, I took a tour of the facility and fell in love in that moment I decided this was my next step to get to my dream of being a pastry chef. I studied at the Claire Clark academy for 2 years I learnt a lot from an amazing lecturer Andrea Ruff who showed us plated desserts, bread, puff pastry, sugar work and chocolate work just to name a few, While at the Claire Clark academy I did work experience at flourish bakery where I learnt about Viennoiserie production and cakes and when it came my time to leave college I was unsure on where I wanted to go we were in a very confusing time with lockdown due to Covid and was unsure what to do until I stumbled across Ryan Thompsons post on Instagram looking for people to work at the grove, Ryan hired me straight out of college and I have beenworking at the grove for almost 2 years now in the two years I have worked in a few different areas including afternoon tea and the chocolate room.

What or who is your greatest source of inspiration?

I spend a lot of time on my phone just scrolling through social media like people now, and I think that social media is my biggest influence as you can get so many ideas from other chefs and bakers on social media, someone once told me “you can never run out of ideas with so much inspiration at the click of a button”, and I think it’s true it’s hard to not find something you are looking for on social media now and 9/10 you can find thing you couldn’t even think of.

What has been your favourite culinary creation so far?

My favourite culinary creation so far would probably be my afternoon tea I created for a competition, it took a lot of hard work and
adjustments and I think that’s why I like it so much; I think my favourite part of it is petit gateau named the future of farming it was based around this future concept of how we would farm food with vertical poles with holes in it with plants growing out the sides to save space. It also uses one of my favourite biscuits from childhood as a base, Anzac.

What motivated you to enter the Junior Chocolate Masters competition?

I was motivated to enter junior chocolate masters this year because I really enjoyed the experience last year, I enjoyed how much it challenged me and over the last year I have trained and developed skills and I am excited to get to do it again this year.