Leeds consultant turned chocolatier heats it up on the Bake Off
ARTISAN chocolatiers and pastry chefs from Yorkshire are teaming up for the BBC’s Great British Bake Off Creme de la Creme tonight.
A Leeds-based team consisting of managing director of Lauden Chocolate Stephen Trigg, Crafthouse restaurant’s Stefan Rose and Michelin-starred pastry chef Nelson Barros will be competing tonight on the hit show.
Pastry chef judges will put the team under pressure. They will have to produce 108 identical pastries in 3 hours, across three different types of pastry with 36 of each item that must be identical and consistent in the volume challenge.
The final ‘re-working’ challenge will see the team give a modern twist to classic dessert.
Mr Trigg established Leeds-based Lauden Chocolate with his wife in 2008.
He said: “It was only once I’d submitted our application and it was accepted that I stopped to realise what I had done.
“I had just put myself up there with the best of the best in the pastry world, alongside truly respected industry professionals…and up until 2 years ago I still worked in IT…!
“Suddenly the pressure was immense and my sense of responsibility for not letting the team down, and for showcasing Leeds talents to the max, really hit me.”
The show sees him construct a sculpture out of chocolate, which puts his craftsmanship skills truly to the test, but he is adamant that being brave was the way to go.
He said: “We didn’t involve ourselves in this to do it half-heartedly, so creativity and passion had to shine through. Chocolate is a great ingredient to craft with, but its complex properties make it very difficult to control – we’ll see how successful our efforts were on Tuesday!”
The Great British Bake Off Creme de la Creme is aired on Tuesday 26th April, on BBC 2 at 8pm
Get involved on social media: #teamleeds #cremedelacreme #GBBOCreme.
