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Swedish team wins Europe's pastry championship

TT/The Local
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Swedish team wins Europe's pastry championship
File photo of a pastry chef making Swedish semlor: Anders Ahlgren / SvD / TT

A team of Swedish bakers triumphed at the European Pastry Cup, hosted in the Italian city of Turin over the weekend.

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The Sweden team created two ice cream cakes, ten individual desserts, and a chocolate and sugar sculpture more than a metre tall -- all within five hours.

"It feels magical, it's never happened before. We've had two bronze medals in a row," said team leader Tony Olsson after Sweden's victory.

The competing chefs were Jessica Sandberg, a professional pastry chef with 26 years' experience who runs a bakery in Umeå, and Martin Morand, who holds the title of Sweden's Dessert Master.

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The victory was the result of nine months' training, Olsson said. "Twelve- to 17-hour-long days, Monday to Thursday. From the middle of April, we trained once a month, plus extra training at home," he explained. "So we're so happy to get the gold medal today."

The desserts featured a range of Swedish berries, chocolate mousse and hazelnut brownie, and while the cakes were made of raspberry ice cream, mandarin sorbet, a crispy pistachio base, and caramelized pastry. As for the dessert sculpture (pictured below), it was named Mother Nature and was made of a chocolate half and a sugar half melded together.

But Olsson said the team didn't plan to celebrate their win with cake.

"No, but of course we have some champagne. I ate seven ice creams and seven desserts [during the contest] so that's enough for me."

Altogether seven nations competed in the European Pastry Cup, and as victors Sweden will now enter what Olsson said was "the world's biggest baking event", the Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie or Pastry World Cup, to be held in Lyon in southern France next year.

READ ALSO: Eight classic Swedish desserts to die for

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