Brotherhood winning recipe for student chefs

Daniel Kelly, Jakob Dawson, Sam Heaven and Daniel Moss took out seven gold and two silver medals at a national culinary competition. Photo / Duncan Brown

Budding chefs from St John's College have managed to stay cool against hot competition in the kitchen and walk away with seven gold and two silver medals.

The four students were taking part in a national culinary fair run by the New Zealand Chefs Association.

Year 12 student Sam Heaven won three golds - in the gateaux, sweet or savoury pie and live cake-icing classes. It was an extra special achievement for a talented teen whose parents own the Hawke's Bay chain, Heaven's Bakery.

His dream is to become a pastry chef, preferably heading overseas to train after finishing high school.

"Ever since I was little, I have been in the kitchen watching mum and dad ... in Year 9 I started helping with daily production and began entering a few things - I won the Rising Young Baker title in 2012," he said.

Judges raved at how well all the students performed, with Sam's live cake-icing class score unbeaten on days one and two - even against more experienced polytechnic students and apprentices.

His icing expertise scored 98 points - just two below the highest score achievable: "I was really pleased to get that one," he said.

Fellow classmates were also winners with Daniel Moss picking up a gold medal in the soup category and silver for his pasta; Jakob Dawson won gold in the soup section while Daniel Kelly took out gold in the burger battle and silver for a delectable omelette.

Sam put their overall success down to a strong support network - and ability to critique each other's work.

"Each dish was practised about 30 times - we were practising after school, lunch ... there's quite a brotherhood in our school, especially in here we help each other out, without each other I don't think we would have done so well."

Their wins comprised three first in class, four seconds, one third and the overall NZ National Secondary Schools Excellence award for 2015.

The students had been sweating it out in the kitchen for the past three months, training several times a week under the watchful eye of culinary arts teacher Craig Ireland.

"The students were winners even before they left just by the work that they had put in, they deserved the win, but these results were far better than my wildest expectations," Mr Ireland said.

"I have been taking students to these competitions for 10 years and gold medals are rare and hard to come by."