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Pastry is different from cooking because you have to consider the chemistry, beauty and flavor. It's not just sugar and eggs thrown together. I tell my pastry chefs to be in tune for all of this. You have to be challenged by using secret or unusual ingredients.

I am not a shock jock pastry chef. I don't create desserts using strange ingredients just for the sake of doing so, like so many of my colleagues in the industry.

I have a terrible tendency to lick my fingers when I cook. So much so that I got a telling off from my pastry teacher years ago, who said it would hinder my prospects.

I do not like a quiche with wet, undercooked pastry underneath, and that is that.

Pastry school is great for a foundation and introducing you to basic techniques, but it is really up to the chefs to practice, practice, practice and refine their techniques.

My grandmother taught me how to make the basic pate brise pastry crust when I was young. The one thing I learned simply by eating her endless variations on delicious tarts for dinner every night is that this dough can be used for just about anything - sweet or savory.

A recipe is not an exact formula, but it does need a certain structure. When the bones are right, you can dress it in many ways.

I'm not big on the pasty because they say the pastry in the pasty can bring on indigestion.