David Mahn, head pastry chef at restaurant Ammolite in the Europa Park in Rust, and Eugen Stichling, Pastry Chef of the Restaurant Dallmayr Munich, will fight for the title of “Pastry Chef of the Year”at the Anuga in Cologne in 2015. In the second qualifying round on 28 September in Cologne, the two won in a pastry fight with three other contestants. The Audience Award by Rama Cremefine was also awarded to Eugene Stichling.
After the great success of the premiere of this international competition, the “Pastry chefs of the Year”, in Hamburg, the second semi-final in Cologne was immensely popular, too. A total of 56 ambitious pastry chefs had applied and thus made pre-selection fairly difficult for the technical judges Miguel Contreras, Marcus Hannig, Alexander Krob and Patrick Lorenz. The five selected participants took part in a five-hour competition against each other. The challenge consisted of the following tests: a three-component dessert of pear, curd and fennel, a freestyle dessert and a chocolate / Petit Four, to be created according to their own imagination, and prepared on site.
The winner, David Mahn, presented the three compulsory components pear, fennel and curd with saffron and honey and served a freestyle dessert called “Late summer in the Badische region”, a combination of seasonal products of that region. As Petit Four, he combined orange, Manjari and pumpkin seed oil. The second finalist, Eugen Stichling, created fennel 3D with curd and pear, a freestyle dessert of passion fruit, pepper, sunflower seeds and semi-dried blueberries and a petit four with Amalfi lemon, cream cheese and coriander.
The jury consisted of highly decorated pastry chefs and experts in their field; Stephan Bollig, the Spanish star pastry chef Jordi Butrón, René Frank, Benjamin Kunert, Matthias Ludwig, Georg Maushagen , Matthias Mittermeier, Matthias Spurk, Andy Vorbusch and Alejandro Wilbrand, who tasted and rated the creations of the participants.
The following emerging talents of the sweet arts took part in the second semi-finals in Cologne:
Nico Kuckenburg, Chef de Partie, Pastry Restaurant Coq au Vin in Schloss Lerbach (Bergisch Gladbach)
Eric Lehr, Pastry Chef, Restaurant “Der Rosenkavalier” at the Hotel Vila Vita Rosenpark (Marburg)
David Mahn, Pastry Chef, Ammolite (Rust)
Michael Rieser, Pastry Chef, Inter-Hotel Tyrol (Austria)
Eugen Stichling, Pastry Chef, Restaurant Dallmayr (Munich)
The audience was also able to enjoy the show cooking concept iPastry and the creative workshop. In sunny weather, over 400 people gathered to watch the big stars of the industry at work. René Frank presented current chocolates and petit fours, while the iPastry stars Jordi Butrón, Matthias Ludwig and Andy Vorbusch presented their innovative ideas for fruit, dairy products and aromatic herbs in a dynamic presentation on stage.
The day after, gourmets in the Rhineland can expect another day of high-class cooking at the Chef of the Year competition.
More information atwww.kochdesjahres.de.
Images ©Patissier des Jahres/ Marcus Scheuermann