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The Joint Culinary Training Exercise (JTCE) was founded in 1973 and is the largest military culinary competition in North America with a mission to offer military chefs the opportunity to sharpen their culinary skills, benefiting military diners in troop facilities in garrison and on the battlefield.

For the 2022 international competition, competitors were asked to prepare for 4 categories including; bread, seafood, cold dessert and mystery (where individuals could be challenged to create almost anything)!

We caught up with Grahame Wickham who represented the UK with colleague, Rachyel Ainsworth to congratulate him on his double gold and for winning “Best International Team”.

Which two categories did you have to complete?

I was asked to complete the bread and cold dessert categories. I was so concerned about the cold desserts initially as these are not my strongest point.

Tell us more about the bread you created?

I created six types of bread. Firstly a plaited loaf consisting of three types of dough including a sun blushed tomato and rosemary focaccia; a tiger baguette and finally a challah bread. Alongside this sat an oat, mixed seed and honey loaf and a clover bread roll.

The tiger bread was almost a disaster, initially I’d over-proved and it exploded. I had to completely start from scratch with this element with just over an hour spare!

Tell us about the cold dessert – it looked incredible!

For the dessert, I designed a chocolate delice and kumquat and orange compote with a blood orange gel. This was garnished with Cointreau infused orange segments, with an orange zested tuille, chocolate soil and Greek yogurt and marmalade sorbet.

How did the judges react?

I was so pleased to receive such amazing feedback from the judges – I was blown away. I always find myself pointing out my own mistakes or areas of improvement, but I guess that’s what this competition is all about – I believe improvements can always be made.

If you could have given yourself one piece of advice prior to the competition, what would it be?

Don’t overcomplicate the dessert. Being someone that isn’t a dessert guru – it could have gone very wrong. Just execute it to the best it can be.

Will you be competing again next year?

Yes, next year we’re entering a team of six – I’m hoping that we keep our “International Team of the Year” title for two years running!

Follow Grahame’s journey on Instagram - @grahame.wickman