How to make sweets - Rose pillows and lemon jellies

TAGS: Recipes

Cookery Editor, Sue, has been in Lyon for the World Patisserie Cup and has some recipes for traditional sweets to inspire you.

Already known as the Gastronomic Capital of Europe, Lyon played host to the World Patisserie Cup competition last month. I had an extra interest in attending as my husband was the Team Captain for team UK, having won the qualifying round in Paris last year. The teams had 10 hours to produce a sugar sculpture, chocolate sculpture, ice sculpture, chocolate cake, frozen cake plus a frozen dessert.

Team UK chose “Lost Worlds” to be their theme and their sculptures included a sabre tooth tiger, ammonite and dinosaur. This was their finished display table (below).

And this was their chocolate cake, which had to be made using Valrhona chocolate – sponsors of the event. I was very lucky to have tried this several times while they were fine tuning the recipe.

Overall France were the winners with their “Le Mans” theme:

Japan came second with their musical theme (I thought that either Japan or Italy were going to win):

And in third place were Italy with their circus theme:

The UK placed ninth overall, out of the 40 countries, so it was great that they were in the top 10.

Opposite the hotel, where we were staying, was a lovely deli where I bought some Pate de Fruits (pictured at the top) to bring back for the cookery team. The Pate de Fruits were threaded onto wooden skewers, rather like kebabs and then wrapped in cellophane.

They reminded me of these Lemon Jellies (below) that I made in a sweet making feature. And if the sugar sculptures have inspired you, then the Rose Pillows (below) are made by pulling the boiled sugar syrup – one of the techniques used to create the showpieces at the competition.

Unfortunately as so many people were wanting to watch the competition, once I got my seat I couldn’t leave, or I’d lose it, so I didn’t get to see the rest of what was happening. But for me it was great to be part of the crowd of UK supporters in what was the patisserie equlivent of the Olympics!