I am Zhou Zihao, a pastry chef from Guangzhou Xindongfang Cuisine School.

It was the passion in pastry artistry  brought me to this field. I deeply enjoy in creating artful styling of showpieces.

Therefore, I am more interested in designing artistic shapes and decorations to make the presentation of pastry work more attractive.

I am Zhao Chengsa, from Grand Kempinski Hotel Shanghai.

The origin was my love of eating desserts, so I started to try this industry and gradually step on more and more professional development. It can be briefed as a hobby turned into profession. My specialty is dessert, and I am more interested in chocolate.

First of all, CPC is the competition with esteem status in pasty industry. The rules and requirements are specific and clear, which provides all candidates more capacity of performance. Both the advantages have attracted me.

Since I became a professional chef, I have always had a dream, to compete at an international arena and achieve good result. CPC is exactly such a professional competition which will be leading to the international stage. So it was natural reaction to me to get signed up as soon as I heard of the recruitment news.

CPC is a more intense competition, as it is about to select outstanding candidates to represent China.

Both the review process and requirements are more stringent.

This CPC has much higher standard, more requirements and a larger scale. All the staff are very professional．

The preparation was quite tense.  I just participated in another competition, therefore only had about three weeks to prepare the design for this CPC.  I have made the utmost efforts of days and nights to perfect the design and sketch draft of my work.

I have prepared overnights, many overnights. I just participated in another competition as well, and the time to prepare for this CPC is only about two weeks. I also need to work during daytime, therefore could only prepare for CPC by overnights.

Sugar Showpiece: “Miracle-Fairy”

The 3rd CPC has set the theme as "Color. China". My work is inspired by Dunhuang frescoes of flying apsaras. The Dunhuang frescoes were both nurtured by western region culture and central plains culture, which proved the diversity of Chinese civilization.  I respond the theme in the variety of cultural forms. The modeling presents the artistic conception of a flying apsaras in the sky.

Chocolate showpiece: "Tea Rhymes" 

Inspired by a master, I mean to use Chinese style to respond to the theme of "Color. China". The feeling of Chinese tea rhyme is expressed by the mahogany and teapot accompanied by a combination of flowers and leaves.

The main problem was the temperature and humidity. I am based in Guangzhou, where the temperature and humidity are very different from Shanghai, which caused me some troubles and might resulted points deduction. I would recommend future candidates to go to various environments to train more to improve their adaptability of techniques.

The biggest problem was the temperature. Particular feelings are: There will be many uncertainties at the scene. One of the challenges of competition is to encounter various problems and solve them. The other is that taste is very, very important.

Actually, I would more like to share the feelings before competition. I have been preparing for the competition by myself and got a complex feelings of helplessness when I encounter problems, the pressure from I still was not sure what to do while competition time is approaching and feeling of exhausted for preparing overnights. It happened a few times I thought of giving up. Fortunately, I persevered and got the opportunity of stepping on the world stage. Now I have a deep understanding we must have a dream, and be persist in working hard for the dream. You never know on which day the dream comes true.

Firstly, I would like to thank Guangzhou Xindongfang Cuisine School for supporting me in participating CPC. Thank the organizing committee and the judges for the opportunity and recognition. I would also like to thank Coach Yang and all the masters, who instructed me in the past, coach Feng and all other teachers who guided me into the competition. I am honored to have the opportunity to represent China in APC. I will definitely go all out to make full preparations to meet the new challenges.

I am feeling more of pressure, knowing that there is still a big gap between myself and a good candidate at international level.  There are still many things I could work on. Looking forward to the Asian Cup, I want to come up with better works. I am not very satisfied with the performance this time as there are still regrets in the works, and I have not done my best yet.

All the candidates responded very well to the theme, and truly reflected the versatility. The showpiece created by the chocolate champion is very delicate by applying Chinese ceramic tea sets and mahogany to express Chinese culture, which also requires s very high craftsmanship.

Every candidate deserves respect. The hard work behind the scenes is beyond the imagination of outsiders, such as the 8-hour non-stop work during the competition. There is also an issue of balancing work and participation in competitions. It is very challenging to play in the best condition without affecting regular job.   There are even more challenges for the non local candidates, for example, only the tools they need to bring to the competition are more than 100 kg.

There is still much deficiency I should be working on.  I must do my best to enhance myself, and strive to be superior through craftsmanship improvement.

Make 100% efforts to prepare for APC, hoping to make a result that satisfies myself and the expectations on us. 

I have gained a lot from this CPC experience. I will go for more competitions in the future to further enhance my skills.Thanks!

I hope to exercise myself through various competitions, and I hope I can grow into an excellent pastry chef in the future.Thanks!