Success is just desserts for pastry chef

During the last days of her French course she had to stay in Beijing. Each day after class she would continue to study at a cafe near where she lived until midnight.

"It was around Christmas. I never felt afraid when I walked on the empty streets in Beijing at midnight, because I was so happy that it was on my way to fulfill my dream," she says.

"I didn't feel cold either, because the feeling of holding my dream in my hand kept me warm."

Dai continued to study French in France when she went there in 2014. She applied for a pastry course at Le Cordon Bleu.

Founded in Paris in 1895, Le Cordon Bleu is the largest network of culinary and hospitality schools in the world training 20,000 students from more than 100 nationalities each year.

"When I enrolled in the program and met my classmates from all over the world, I found out that there were so many people that shared the same dream as me," she says.

"My dream is to use my hands to bring others the flavor of happiness."

The course was intense.

"The chefs were so strict that if we came to the classroom with a spot of sauce on our clothes, we were kicked out of the classroom until we changed into a clean outfit," Dai says.

Seasonal ingredients took priority. When the strawberry season arrived, Dai would visit all the dessert shops in town to try their desserts with the fruit.

Living in a small room in Paris with only a loft bed with a rudimentary desk, Dai bought an oven to put on the desk to sharpen her skills.

When she was preparing for the "chocolate exam", she had to get up at 3 am to practice heating and cooling the chocolate to make sure she would get the right consistency later in the day in front of her tutors and classmates.

"It was summertime in Paris, and there was no air conditioner. Temperature is king in cooking and only at 3 am was the temperature cool enough to make the chocolate correctly."

Dai had to pass three levels of exams to graduate. Each test had a 10-dessert list, and the students were chosen at random to make one for the judges within a limited time.

After passing all her exams, Dai got an internship at L'Eclair de Genie, one of the most popular puff pastry shops in France.

Dai's work was to make the fillings.

"If you tried eclairs during the time I interned there, the fillings must have been made by me," Dai says proudly.

Dai also enrolled in a one-year program on French cuisine at the same school.

She recalls her time at the culinary school as nervous but happy, and that she, literally, got her fingers burned by the oven.