Department of Hotel and Restaurant Management student, Jhai Yu-Fan, has taken the cake one again. At the 2018 Battle of the Chefs, which was held in Malaysia this October, Zhai’s demonstrated his talent and skill in the Cake Decoration category and Sugar Work category, winning the gold medal in both competitions.

This March, Zhai’s show-cased his skills at the San Diego Cake Competition in California with a cake designed as a model the historical Chinese imperial warlord, Lü Bu, and he came home with the “Professional Grand Prize”.

Reflecting on his time in Malaysia, Jhai explained that “the Cake Decoration competition is two hours, so you need to be extremely focused. Of course, I learned some things in this competition. When the judges made their critiques, they pointed out a number of imperfections and shortcomings – these are the things that you really need to pay extra attention to at a competition”.

The Sugar Work competition had a “fox ferry” theme. Jhai’s work included a nine-tailed fox together with a fox fairy standing next to an Inari shrine on a tiny world extruding from a gossip array. Jhai found this competition to be quite difficult. Limitations imposed by flying were one thing; but, once arriving “the humidity and heavy rains made it a challenge to keep the cake in shape.”

In the future, Jhai will travel to Germany with his mentor to take part in the 2020 IKA Culinary Olympics with the goal of improving his professional skills and continuing his pathway towards a professional career in baking.