Celebrating The Sweet Arts

30 Jun 2014
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< 1 min read
“Pastry Chef of the Year” honours its first two finalists…

Kay Baumgardt, Pastry Chef of the Mannheim Opus V and Michael Rieser, chief saucier from the Taubenkobel in the Austrian Schützen am Gebirge, triumphed at the Hamburg semi-final. Both finalists will compete for the title of “Pastry Chef of the Year” at Anuga in Cologne.

A total of five participants had taken part in what was the premiere of “Pastry Chef of the Year”. After five hours of preparation all candidates presented their creations: A freestyle dessert, a 3-component dessert of strawberry, matcha tea and almond and a praline or a Petit Four. A major challenge that required not only technical ability and originality in the composition of the desserts and chocolates, but also considerable organisational skills.

The winner, Kay Baumgardt, impressed with vitamin C, Shiso, yellow radish and radish in freestyle, a witty strawberry, matcha and almond 3-component dessert and a “Black and White Lolly” as Petit Four. The runner-up, Michael Rieser, served matcha with strawberries in olive oil and almond ricotta, green and candied almonds and oats as his 3-component dessert, a freestyle dessert of sweet foie gras, amaranth, white chocolate and celery and the Petit Four “jellied seed oil, vanilla and acid”.

The high-ranking jury of the star pastry chefs René Frank, Christian Hümbs, Matthias Mittermeier, Xano Saguer, Andy Vorbusch and Gerald Zogbaum and technical judges Miguel Contreras, Marcus Hannig and Patrick Lorenz chose the two winners.

©PDJ/ Melanie Bauer Photodesign