About Jordi's experience and history to date
Every week we receive a lot of questions in our networks: about recipes, about the B-Concept method, about our pastry courses, about the B-Pro software... But also about Jordi and his story. That's why, some time ago, we wanted to explain it to you more in depth and first hand in a live video on Instagram. At the end of this post we share with you the full video, with subtitles so you can follow it better and, in addition, we leave you a summary in interview format of the questions that you have repeated the most about Jordi's experience and history. Let's start!
WHICH WAS THE TRIGGER TO DEDICATE YOURSELF TO PASTRY?
I was born and grew up among flour, chocolate and sugar, in my parent's bakery and, since I was a child I enjoyed working with my hands.
WHAT WAS YOUR MOTIVATION TO CHOOSE BECOMING A PASTRY CHEF?
At school, I immediately realized that studying was not my thing and I decided that I wanted to become a pastry chef to work in the family business.
WHERE DID YOU STUDY?
I studied pastry at the EPGB (Barcelona’s Pastry School of the Guild) for 3 years and then I travelled abroad to learn from different chefs in France, Italy… When I was 25 years old I got back and started working with my parents and my brother in our pastry shop, Santacreu (Viladecans), but at 33 I started looking for other motivations and then was when I got the itch to start competing.
COULD YOU SHARE A LITTLE ABOUT HOW YOU GOT WHERE YOU ARE?
I remember that, in my first competition in front of a jury (Livania Awards 2007), I was very nervous and the first thing I thought was: "I'm going to die, this is too difficult for me". But it turned out to be a great experience, it enriched me and I learned how to work with ice sculptures, which require technique and skill, as well as to be in good shape.
In the end, I won the best ice sculpture award and I was selected to represent Spain in the 2008 Ice Cream World Cup (Sigep, Rimini). The team was wonderful, made up by Spanish ice cream makers and, although we finished in 4th position despite having worked very hard, it was a really interesting experience, in which I learned the importance of techniques and ingredients, as well as the need to perfectly understand them to be able to adjust the recipes. Something that would later inspire me to create the B·Concept method.
WHAT WERE THE KEYS TO BECOMING A WORLD CHAMPION?
After this, I began preparing myself for the Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie 2009. For this, I spent a week with Alain Chartier in Bretagne, who taught me to master tools and balance entremets. At the competition, I teamed with Makito Hiratsuka and Ariel Mendizábal, but although having trained a lot, we had done it separately and it turned out to be a problem, coming last but one. I think this has been one of the worst days of my life, but it made me learn again.
I reflected and understood the problem. When you participate in a team competition, you have to work as a team. That is, you need to work together as long as possible, to understand and adjust each other’s work for the competition. Having understood this, I decided to start over, since Spain had very good chefs and a good dessert culture, so we had to do better.
In 2010 we created a new team with the help of my sister Montse, specialist in team building, and we began to work very hard to prepare the competition, day by day and together. With Julien Álvarez and Josep Maria Rodríguez, we gave our best and in January 2011 we won the Coupe du Monde. It was an incredible experience and a turning point in my life. When you win a competition like this one you rethink everything and, you realize that pastry has infinite possibilities.
Brands started to call for demonstrations, and so, I started teaching around the world. . I found very interesting the idea of my knowledge and experiences with others and I set myself the goal of fopening a school at home, in Viladecans (Barcelona).
WHAT INSPIRES YOU?
After winning the World Cup and start to demonstrate for brands, I understood what people needed to learn. At the same time, working with recipes from other chefs did not make me feel comfortable. With these reflections and my previous experiences, I tried to understand why we use certain ingredients and techniques, and so began to formulate what is now the B·Concept method.
HOW DID YOU CREATE YOUR OWN METHOD?
In those days, I also became a vegetarian and, what had started as a way to create my own recipes, ended up becoming a method in which we also pay attention to the new market needs, always looking for a healthier, lighter and tastier pastries.
HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH THE B·CONCEPT METHOD?
That is how B·Concept was born. In 2015 we presented it at Barcelona Fòrum Gastronòmic and opened the school in Viladecans, receiving students from all over the world to teach them how to formulate their own recipes from scratch.
WHEN YOU STARTED, WHAT DIFFICULTIES DID YOU FACE?
The biggest problem I faced was when learning in pastry school and in the different stages. Some chefs teach you, but they do not show you everything and, sometimes, they keep secrets, giving you only part of the information.
This has been one of the most difficult things for me to accept and, in a way, that is why I started with my own school, trying to help people avoid this situation. When I teach, I try to share everything I know about pastry, I do not keep anything for me.
HOW DO YOU REALIZE YOU LIKE PASTRY?
I think things are discovered step by step. In my case, I realized little by little that pastry was my life, that it was what I longed to do. It was not as if one day I woke up and said ‘Well, I’m going to become World Pastry Champion, and I’m going to start teaching people’, no. Step by step.
HOW CAN YOU FIND YOUR PASSION IN THIS JOB?
At first, I was just looking for a way to express myself and, day by day, I started to build my story and discover new things about myself. If ten years ago someone had told me "you are going to become a Pastry World Champion, you are going to have a school, you are going to create a method to help people create their own recipes…" I would had never believed it.
Life is a kind of ladder and each step helps you to improve your skills, to progress in life and then, you are ready for the next step. Little by little you discover what you like and, this is the way. This is how I discovered my philosophy and my path in life.
HOW DO YOU SEE PASTRY INDUSTRY IN THE NEXT 5 YEARS?
Certainly, this is a very good question. I think we have to change many things since, today, needs of customers are very different from those of twenty or thirty years ago. If I am sure of something, is that we need to adapt our pastry to these new market needs.
I am not just thinking about special necessities, such as vegan, gluten-free or lactose-free products. What I mean is we have to rethink or rebuild, not all the bakery, because there are incredible products that we can always continue to make, but we have many recipes that we can transform, adapt and improve to respond to these new demands.
I firmly believe that this is the work we have ahead in the next five, or even ten years. The longer we take to improve our products, the longer we will need to transform our industry.
But this does not end here! We encourage you to watch the full video, since you will find answers to as diverse questions as "Is there a big difference between a B·Concept dessert cost and a regular one?"(min. 29), "Which do you think is the best chocolate?" (min. 31, 37 and 43) or "What is the difference between pectin NH and X58?" (min. 22). We also talk about the B·Pro software (min. 35) and, if you are interested in the books we share, you can find them in this post: Eight technical books for pastry chefs.
