FORMER fireman Eric Joyce has gone from hot to cold in his career.

Now he and his wife Janice are celebrating after making sure they licked the opposition at the UK’s national ice cream competition.

Their business, the Vanilla Bean Café and Ice Cream Parlour in Slaithwaite, was awarded the Dick Coletta Rose Bowl, the first prize, for its entry in the large artistic class for ice-cream cakes.

And it’s a triumph for Eric, who spent 21 years fighting fires in Dewsbury before learning the intricate skills of making ice-cream cakes from the masters – the Italians.

He went out to Rimini to attend the world’s biggest ice-cream festival and learned some of the skills which he has now honed at their Carr Lane premises.

Eric and Janice, of Marsden, received the award at The National Ice Cream Competition run by The Ice Cream Alliance – the trade body for the UK ice cream industry.

The couple were placed second in the same category last year.

Janice said: “The rose bowl was donated more than 30 years ago by a Huddersfield company to commemorate businessman Dick Coletta, so there is a real local link for us.”

Founded by Janice just eight years ago, the business’s original focus was on frozen yoghurt but, as she says, ice-cream ‘just kept popping up” and with support from RSS in Hereford, who manufacture ice cream making equipment and also run training courses, ice-cream emerged as its speciality.

Eric said: “Ice cream is quite a physical business, so it made sense that when I retired from the fire service three years ago, I took on that aspect.

“I’ve also always had a creative, artistic side, so when we decided we wanted our ice-cream cakes to be more specialist and artisan, it seemed a natural niche for my talents.”

He went to Italy to study ice cream cake making at the MEC3 School of Gelato in Rimini and also visited the ice cream world’s top trade fair, in Rimini, which proved a great inspiration.

“The exhibits were incredible – detailed, inventive and adventurous. They really fired my imagination.”

Now his cakes are in demand for weddings, birthday parties and occasions like Mother’s Day.

“Every one is different and it depends what mood I’m in, picking different flavours and glazes.

“Raspberry and white chocolate seems to be a popular one at the minute,” Eric added.