Polyviou - Sweet street: show-stopping sweet treats and rockstar desserts

AFTERNOON TEA JUST GOT A MAKEOVER!

With her signature mohawk and rockstar personality, Anna Polyviou (aka the Punk Princess of Pastry) is all about breaking the rules, turning the world of high-end patisserie into a high-energy, interactive party experience.

In Sweet Street, Anna brings her world-class training, techniques and flavours into your kitchen. Her recipes will tempt you to grab a bowl and spoon, gather some delicious ingredients and whip up a sweet treat, whether its a classic with a modern twist, a new take on afternoon tea or a knockout dessert to wow your guests. Home cooks of all levels will find expert tips, encouragement and bucket loads of ideas, from quick and easy treats like Cheats Trifle and Cherry on Top to challenging show stoppers such as Annas Mess, Carrot Cake and Annas Tower of Terror.

Packed with inspiration, Sweet Street will show you just how easy spectacular cooking can be.

Anna Polyviou is a pastry chef with an edge. Awarded 2017 Chef of the Year by Tourism Accommodation Australia (TAA), 2016 Pastry Chef of the Year by Gault&Millau and 2016 Hotel Chef of the Year by Hotel Management magazine, Anna is a familiar face on the culinary scene. She has worked alongside many renowned pastry chefs, including Pierre Herm of Pierre Herm Paris patisseries. Her career has taken her to London, Paris and Chicago and onto our screens with MasterChef Australia and Family Food Fight. Anna lives in Sydney, Australia.

DEDICATION

To Casey Hardaker, my partner, lover and my rock. By the time this book is out, we will have been together for 10 years. I thank you for allowing me to chase my dreams and the different sacrifices we have made together. My success is only achieved with you standing beside me and being my backbone. I thank you for never giving up. Love you.

ABOUT 3SOMES

Throughout the book you'll find my wicked 3some recipes. On these pages I take a favourite basic dessert such as panna cotta or pavlova and use it in three different ways to show how versatile it can be. You can have lots of fun adding your own special twists. Start with my recipes and use your imagination to make them your own!

INTRODUCTION

Life is about breaking rules, about asking for forgiveness rather than permission, about how we stand out from the rest and what makes us extra-special. When were told its impossible then the possible is created.

Sweet Street is a festival that I created back in 2014 at Shangri-La Hotel, Sydney. I wanted to transform the hotel into a festival with my pastry-chef friends from around Australia joining me in showcasing their creations. It's about bringing people together to experience a different world of sweet treats with funky cool beats.

This book has been four years in the making and I have travelled around the world trying to take you to different sweet streets. It's about sweet journeys, from the threesome experience one recipe presented three different ways to quick sugar fixes that use items lying around the pantry; old-school classics brought back to look super-cool; and rockstar creations that have featured on TV and have over a hundred steps.

It's about all levels of cooks getting into the kitchen and giving it a go. I don't want you to leave this book on the coffee table or lose it among all the other books on your shelves; I want it to be given as a gift and I want it to get dirty. Use it to impress your family and friends (and yourself) when you learn that spectacular cooking can be easy.

Sharing a dish brings people together. I hope that my sweet streets will cross roads and allow you and your loved ones to create and to eat as one.

THE BEGINNING

An overnight success, some would say, but that's not true: to every story theres always a beginning. A wild child, I was. Not a bad kid, just a little show-off in class. I suppose some things haven't changed.

I applied twice to do an apprenticeship at Hotel Sofitel in Melbourne, but when I got in, instead of taking it seriously, I went off partying. Then I was placed into a team of four in a competition: they needed a pastry chef and they were desperate. I was doing breakfast in the hotel at the time, so the partying was put on hold and I started to learn pastry on my days off, after work and in breaks. I trained so hard and we came in second place. I felt I had let the team down.

I remember my mother telling me, My daughter needs to learn how to lose before she learns how to win. I understand now what she meant: understanding how it feels to lose and, when you win, to be humble, grateful and respectful.

After that, I won every competition: not because I was the best, but because I was the best organised. I trained like a demon and won the Best Apprentice competition run by Les Toque Blanches in Victoria, Australia. The prize was a scholarship to work anywhere in the world to further my cooking career.

I went to work in London for three years at Claridges, where I worked under two extraordinary pastry chefs: Julie Sharp, named the UK's Best Pastry Chef 2004 by the Craft Guild of Chefs, and Nick Patterson, who was awarded the same prize four years later. I would sleep in the corner of the training room at the hotel, not going home for weeks on end as I was working, studying and competing. Most prestigiously, I won the Michael Nadell Pastry Trophy, which is how I ended up in Paris doing stints with renowned pastry chef Pierre Herm.

I came back to Australia after three years of training, developing and growing my skills. My sell-out Dessert Degustation put the Shangri-La on Australia's culinary map. Then in 2015, one of my trademark dishes, a modernist take on the traditional carrot cake, won best dessert in Australia. I was invited onto the TV show MasterChef Australia as a guest judge, where I presented the .

I've continued winning awards, including the Gault & Millau Pastry Chef of the Year 2016 and Chef of the Year in both 2016 and 2017 from Tourism Accommodation Australia (NSW). In 2017, Channel Nine Australia created a brand new prime-time TV show: Family Food Fight, where I was a regular judge and created . Whats next? I want my own TV show, I want to continue writing books and creating experiences for my fans. I hope you enjoy this one.