Some of Australia’s best baking apprentices gathered in Brisbane earlier this month to take part in the WorldSkills Australia final.

Held at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre from June 12-14, the national championship served as an opportunity for the nation’s top apprentices to compete in a high-energy challenge that put their skills to the test.

William Nickl from The Gumnut Patisserie in the NSW Southern Highlands took out the top spot and described the competition as an amazing experience.

“The whole WorldSkills experience was absolutely amazing, and to top it off with the gold medal was picture perfect,” he said.

“It was an amazing experience – not just the competition, but being with the team from Canberra. It was also amazing to see how high the level of production was across the board in the patisserie competition, as well as seeing the high levels of skills across the board in all of the trades at the competition.”

William said the patisserie competition involved making a 60cm chocolate showpiece as well as two types of petite gateaux, Entremet, two types of bonbons, marzipan figurines and a mystery box plated dessert.

Training for the competition began nine months ago, after William took out the regional championship, and was the aspect he said was the most challenging.

“[This involved] working on tempering chocolate and making bonbons and marzipan figures. From about five months before the competition we knew what the them was, and then it all came together,” he said.

“I trained every day for five months to perfect my products. Then I started practicing full days of competition. Before the competition I did 10 full practice runs.”

The win means William could be named in the Australia Skillaroo team, which will travel to Shanghai, China, in 2026 for the 48th WorldSkills competition.

Before that, however, William will be readying himself to take part in the ANZBake competition, which will be held at the Baking Industry Trade Show in July. It’s here he will team up with Connor Beisler, who also took out gold at the WorldSkills Australia competition for baking, Jonny Pisanelli and Brendon Woodward to take on Team New Zealand in the competition.