What do Winston Churchill’s cigar, Welsh Laverbread and NASA have in common?
They all featured in the winning dishes at NFYFC’s national Cookery finals, supported by ADM, in September.
With this year’s finalists tasked with creating a three-course celebration meal, there was a wide range of delicious ideas served in the NFYFC marquee at the Malvern Show.
The overall winning team from Pembrokeshire chose to put a local delicacy of Laverbread centre stage and included the edible seaweed in all three of their courses.
“We went for a theme celebrating Laverbread Day, which is a celebration that happens in April. Laverbread is actually seaweed so it’s a very difficult ingredient to put in a dessert perhaps, but we tried our best to figure out ways to put it in different dishes,” said team member Cerys Davies, who cooked with Grace and Alaw.
“We made a chocolate shell, we also had lobster and prawn in our main dish and in our starter we also had fish tacos, that was based on salmon as well. All things that go really well with seaside flavours.”
Two of the team have competed at the national final for three years.
“Every time we compete as a pair we always come second,” said Grace about her competing history with Cerys. “It’s nice this year to actually break it and win.”
One of the judges chef Hetty Zeigler-Jones said she was always blown away by what the teams produce under the conditions they have to work in.
“You have to remember what they’re using,” said Hetty about the cooking stoves, the two small tables and the hour in which every team has to cook inside the marquee. “Trying to keep that tiny space tidy so they don’t mess things up – there’s an awful lot to think about. What they must do in advance for today is huge. Hats off to them all.”
The Best Presentation of the day was awarded to Ellie Dowse from Yorkshire A for an impressive chocolate cigar as part of the team’s Winston Churchill design in honour of the 80th anniversary of VE Day.
The chocolate cigar included labels made from fondant icing that were of the brand Churchill liked and they used the champagne he drank with their strawberries.
“When they called out my name, I was really happy because it was a temperamental dessert and it took a lot of time and effort and if it went wrong it would go terribly wrong,” said Ellie. “Today it went right, so it got us the prize that’s for sure.”
The intricacy of the cigar impressed judge Chef and judge Ben Axford.
“The dessert was probably the most technically complex piece of work we have seen at the show over many years,” Ben said.
A Welsh team won the best dish of the day for two of their courses. The Carmarthenshire A team, made up of Magi, Sion and Siriol Howells were praised for the flavours they created for their sirloin steak with haggis main, followed by their trio of desserts.
The dishes celebrated a Best of British theme and their dessert included berry summer pudding, rhubarb and syllabub cream and a chocolate mousse.
The judges were impressed with “every single element” of their main course as Ben said they had “given care and attention to detail” that had really lifted the dish.
Hetty added: “It marries so well together. Each thing is delicious on its own but then when you have it together. And that is another side of cooking.”
The best display of the day was won for a second year by a team from Yorkshire who used NASA as their theme.
They created a goat's cheese panna cotta for a starter in the shape of a crescent moon and pudding was a spherical mould. They painted their display case grey and used expanding foam and glass jars with fairy lights inside to present the food.
“We’ve got 3D planets, they’re made out of Styrofoam so it’s kind of what we had lying around,” said team member Joe Holmes. “We don’t like to waste so there’s an old disco ball that I had, which we’ve disassembled and put around the edge and that’s made the big planet in the centre of the display as well.”
The judges liked the way the team had continued their theme all the way through their presentation.
“The theme was carried on throughout even to the point where they had little NASA name badges on, which was fantastic. It put a smile on our faces, and that’s really what food is about,” said Ben.
After winning the display of the day two years in a row at the national cookery final, Joe had advice for future competitors.
“I think our secret to this is just go wild with it. Go wacky. Think outside of the box.”
Team member Brooke added: “Really let your imagination fly. Don’t give yourself a limit. Just keep going until you’ve run out of ideas.”
The national cookery final theme for 2026 is festival food the rules are available online.
