The Association Culinaire Française (ACF) is this year adding a British twist to its pastry competition, due to be held on 27 March 2011.
ACF, which represents French gastronomy in the UK, aims to raise the profile of pastry making in the country, and hopes its competition could ultimately help bring together a new British team to enter the world pastry challenge, which takes place in Lyon, France, every two years.
ACF this year supported the British entry to the Pastry World Cup, which came 9th out of 30 teams in the final, held on 24 January. ACF director Gilles Quillot said he hopes the association’s own pastry competition will help bring more British talent to the global stage.
“We want to bring up the level of pastry, and get to know the best pastry chefs in the UK. There are some great pastry chefs in London, but we don’t see them very often, so we want to give them the opportunity to make more of an appearance,” he told BigHospitality.
“We’re trying to gather talented pastry chefs together so we might eventually be able to build a team for the world cup.”
Competition format
ACF’s Chocolate Desert of the Year competition will be held at the end of March at Westminster Kingsway College in London.
The competition will have both a professional and a student category, and applications to take part must be submitted to ACF by 1 March 2011.
Contestants will have to prepare four plates of the same desert within four hours. They will need to use at least one of the Valrhona Grand Crus Chocolates: Araguani, Macae, Manjari, Alpaco, Tainori or Nyangbo.
The desert must consist of several different textures and tempered chocolate and must have a British twist to it – for example use of a typically British ingredient.
For more information on the competition and how to enter, go to www.associationculinairefrancaise.co.uk