Pastry World Cup
The Pastry World Cup is continuing its selection process for the Grand Finale in January 2025.
After a cycle of national selections, the European selection of the Pastry World Cup will be held on 21 and 22 January 2024 during Sirha Europain.
Under the eagle eye of Pierre Hermé, president of the competition, eight teams from Belgium, Denmark, France, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and the UK will have 5½ hours to make various treats, including:
- 3 frozen desserts with Capfruit fruit puree (+ 1 dummy)
- 3 pastry pieces: Paris-Brest revisited with Elle & Vire dairy products (+ 1 dummy)
- 8 restaurant style desserts incorporating a hot chocolate soufflé Valrhona
- 1 sugar artistic piece
- 1 chocolate artistic piece
- 1 buffet including the artistic sugar and chocolate pieces, the frozen dessert dummy and the pastry piece dummy.
Introduced during the 2021 Grand Finale, the restaurant dessert style test has been reinvented. These chocolate desserts - which must include two different textures and two different temperatures - must include a Valrhona chocolate hot soufflé.
The creation of a soufflé adds an extra challenge. Candidates will have to be delicate and concentrated if they want to live up to the demands of this test: making a soufflé on the spot, sticking to the precise technique but incorporating a surprising twist.
During the continental selection, the Elle & Vire pastry piece will highlight a local culinary heritage. They will revisit the Paris-Brest - a French pastry staple made from choux pastry.
Made without the use of mould or freezer, this dessert is the result of meticulous hand-crafted work, made without the use of a mould or freezer. Participants will need rethink the pastry, using new flavours, mixtures, techniques and creams to obtain textures that are off the beaten track.
The technique has to be perfect, but the candidates are also expected to convey the right emotion to the jury, who are looking for a memorable experience.
Only three teams will then qualify for the chance to shoot for the Pastry World Cup.