Lollipops resembling bees complete with fragile glass wings made of honey and realistic mushrooms made of chocolate were a few of the nature-inspired sweets at the Academie Culinaire de France first-ever North America Pastry Championship.
After a diligent selection process from dozens of applications, four teams of two were selected to compete in the inaugural bake-off, with one last-minute dropout.
Hosted by the Specialty Food Association’s 69th Summer Fancy Food Show, the remaining three teams – each fitted with one helper from the Institute of Culinary Education — went tête a tête in an open pavilion at the Jacob Javits Center last week. Working with the theme of “celebrating the unique flavors of North American terroir through sustainable pastry creation,” the two-day event was broken up into three categories: vegan, lollypop (sic) and the masterpiece.
“We didn’t want to do a traditional pastry competition,” said Sebastien Baud, president of the Academie Culinaire de France, established in 1879 with 80 chapters across the globe. “[The competitors] did the work to find sustainable produce from their own state, [but] their creation has to be sustainable as well. It’s not just the food, it’s also the material they use to present their dish.”
On day one, the bakers had four-and-a-half hours to prepare and present their vegan dessert and lollypop (sic) to a jury of judges, four for technicality and four for taste. The esteemed panel included competition president, Dominique Ansel of his eponymous bakery in SoHo and Pascal Guillotin, jury president and president of Société Culinaire Philanthropique.
On day two, the teams had three-and-a-half hours to present their masterpiece – one large central cake surrounded by 18 identical miniatures.
Team 4 — Emari Kidd, pastry chef at Omni Hotels in Asheville, North Carolina and Chainey Kuykendall, sous chef at the Virginia Museum of Fine Arts in Richmond – focused on ingredients from Appalachia for their vegan corn cake with popped sorghum.
“Sorghum is the syrup of the South. We used to use that before maple syrup,” said Kidd to the panel of judges as they dissected the dessert in front of them. The team won third place overall.
Team 1 – Nicolas Parsy, pastry chef at Bar Georges in Montreal and Paul Peyrat, pastry chef at Renoir Restaurant at Sofitel Montreal – presented their vegan dessert of a meringue made with potato and pea protein in replacement of the egg whites. It was cylindrically shaped and filled with a rhubarb compote grown by the Tremblay family of Quebec and harvested by the bakers themselves. The dish was as tasty to the palette as it was to the eyes.
“This experience allowed me to rediscover the importance of proximity to nature and solidarity between people,” Parsy wrote in his application, each which were meticulously detailed and available to the judges during the competition.
Team 3 — Jeremy Billy, pastry chef at Group la Tanière and Yves Marie Rolland, pastry teacher at Fierbourg Hotel Schools in Quebec, had an advantage on the competition as the two have about 40 years of experience combined and won competitions before, including Pastry Chef of the Year in 2023.
Their masterpiece was an enchanted forest of cakes surrounded by lush moss, mushrooms made of chocolate and hands also made of chocolate made to look like old tree bark.
“They were modeled from my own hands,” said Rolland while holding out his hands with a smile.
The team chose the forest theme due to Canada’s recent uptick in forest fires with 2023 being the most destructive on record, according to the Canadian Climate Institute.
“We’re always looking for new techniques and new ideas,” said Stephane Cheramy, judge and president of the USA World Cup of Pastry. “It also needs to taste really good because sometimes we forget it’s about food first.”
Each round was judged in 10 categories, including storytelling, connection to the land as well as the team’s ability to work together.
After two days of tasting, grading and deliberating, Team 3 won first place with the most creative and innovative desserts. All teams received kitchen appliances, varying cash prizes and a crystal trophy shaped like a chef’s hat, named after the late Roland Mesnier. The culinary writer and member of the Academie Culinaire de France served as executive pastry chef to the White House for 25 years since 1980. He died in 2022.
“It’s very nice because we met some nice people here and when you participate in this contest or whatever you want to participate in, it’s always to meet people to be part of the family support,” Rolland of Team 3 added.
The biggest challenge for all the chefs was working in an unfamiliar space, but all agreed the camaraderie was the best part.
“And the win,” said Billy laughing, who also fought back tears when his team was announced as the winner.
For next year, the academie plans to make changes to the competition. The lollipops will be swapped for something else and the vegan dessert nixed.
“I received some feedback that it’s not really the fashion anymore,” said competition president Baud. He also hopes to expand to six teams and wants to see desserts with more height. “It was good, but it was all flat. So, we would like to see a little bit more going higher.”
Glasses of champagne and wine flowed freely as the competitors toasted to their wins on June 30th with their sights set on their next pastry battle.
Reach ET Rodriguez at etrodriguez317@gmail.com. For more coverage, follow us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram @amnewyork
