IN ROALD Dahl’s classic children’s story Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, Grandpa Joe declares “Mr Willy Wonka is the most amazing, the most fantastic, the most extraordinary chocolate maker the world has ever seen”.
Grandpa Joe obviously had not met the Gold Coast’s Serdar Yener.
Yener, as he is known to his friends, is a sweet-toothed sorcerer of sugary and chocolatey confection, internationally renowned as a pastry chef and cake artist.
He’s just one of the experts sharing skills at the upcoming International Cake Show Australia, in Brisbane in May. And he’d be right at home in Willy Wonka’s chocolate factory, working magic with the Oompa-Loompas.
“I see the world in terms of chocolate or sugar, as though wearing a filter in my sunglasses,” Yener, 65, concedes.
“I cannot say I prefer one or the other. That would be like choosing between two children. They have their own unique qualities – and attitudes. They need to be treated individually and they both need patience.”
Turkish-born Yener was 17 when he gained his first job at a five-star hotel in Istanbul. “Me and another boy went to get a job at the Hilton and the chief cashier pointed his finger at me and said, ‘You go to the pastry kitchen!’ and to the other boy he said, ‘You go to the rooftop restaurant’. With those few words, he paved my life.”
He went on to lead pastry operations in five-star hotels in Europe and Asia, creating sweet treats for celebrities including French pianist Richard Clayderman, American illusionist David Copperfield and English rock royalty Pink Floyd.
Moving to Australia in 1992, he took up the role of executive pastry chef at the Gold Coast’s Conrad Jupiters Hotel. Five years later, he followed his true love – cake artistry – opening his family business producing wedding and novelty cakes.
Four years ago, with son Serkan’s help, Yener began teaching cake decorating online.
“Cakes and pastries are, to me, celebrations of life,” he says. “They reflect, for me, joy and happiness. That’s what I seek also to create and help people recreate.”
His online school has a library of 139 (and counting) cake decorating tutorials for designs such as three-dimensional teddy bears, a fairy-like spiral staircase, a Lamborghini car or stiletto shoe – all a world away from the Australian Women’s Weekly children’s cake decorating books.
For the International Cake Show Australia, Yener will workshop a simplified version of a galleon. Indeed, Yener has sugar centrepieces displayed in museums in France, Switzerland and Singapore!
“As an artist, if you sculpt with clay, possibilities are endless: you can mould and carve, add and cut out. So it is when using edible materials.”
While many of his professionally- created confections are for eyes only, Yener admits life without a bit – or bite – of sweet pastry is unimaginable.
“I have a terrible sweet tooth! I used to keep sugar cubes in my pocket as a youngster and pop them into my mouth. I would eat cake every day all day if I could, only my wife (Jiuan) does not allow it.”
International Cake Show
Thousands of edible artists, cake decorators, professional bakers, chocolatiers, and home hobbyist decorators are expected at the International Cake Show Australia at Brisbane Showgrounds Exhibition Building in Bowen Hills from May 18-20.
There’ll be cake decorating competitions along with free demonstrations, hands-on masterclass workshops, feature booths where cake artists and chocolatiers will build their sweet installations, live, and pop-up shops.
For info and tickets click HERE
