Nine teams battled it out in the kitchen yesterday for a strawberry-themed pastry challenge and left the judging panel “disappointed” because the cakes only looked good but the natural flavour of the strawberries was absent from the taste.
The Pastry Challenge Macau event, organised by Anchor Food Professionals, took place at The Seasons training restaurant on the campus of the private Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST) in Taipa.
Each team had to make two entremets (desserts) based on the competition’s theme “Strawberry Rhapsody” in three hours.
French master pâtissier (pastry chef) Jean-François Arnaud, representing the five-member judging panel, said in his speech after evaluating the cakes that he was a “little disappointed”.
“After tasting all the cakes, [I was] a little disappointed,” Arnaud said, adding, “I was expecting more fresh strawberry tastes, they were all covered by all the other flavours, they were too sophisticated or too complicated.”
The verdict from Arnaud, who holds the title of “Un des Meilleurs Ouvriers de France” (MOF), literally translated means “One of the Best Craftsmen of France”, was that the cakes were “too red and [had] no taste”.
He pointed out that thanks to social media, people are always taking pictures of food and posting them online, and the food in the photos usually looks all shiny and colourful.
“Today, most of the cakes use a lot of colouring, I was thinking, strawberry theme, we would have a nice strawberry taste but it was not,” Arnaud said, pointing out that the sweetness and shininess of the cakes the contestants made were the result of lots of sugar and food colouring which covered all the natural flavours of the strawberries.
Speaking to the media afterwards, Arnaud said that the contestants need to put the focus back on the taste rather than the look.
“Don’t use too much colouring and don’t use too much sugar to make the cakes too shiny, it’s good for the pictures but it’s not good for the health,” Arnaud said, suggesting that by putting taste in the glazing instead of just sugar was one way of making the cake more flavourful.
Nevertheless, the panel picked the best out of the nine cakes, and the Best Award – Gold winner of the competition was “Feast” created by Sam Wai Ian and Kuok Chi In, who both have been working in the pastry department of Studio City for two years.
Sam told reporters that they spent about three months to come up with the taste and decoration of their cake.
“We used Japanese strawberries because they are generally sweeter, although the batch we got was a little sour but because we used them to make a caramelised compote it was okay,” Sam, 24, said.
Other ingredients used in their cake were balsamic vinegar, basil, white wine and kalamansi – a cross between a citrus and a kumquat.
Sam, who graduated in Culinary Art Management from the Institute of Tourism Studies (IFT) two years ago, said that besides pastry, she hopes to gain experience in cooking different cuisines.
The press judge panel included The Macau Post Daily’s office manager Sally Chong.
French master pâtissier Jean-François Arnaud (left) poses with the Pastry Challenge Macau’s Best Award - Gold winning team Sam Wai Ian (centre) and Kuok Chi In from Studio City during yesterday’s award ceremony at The Seasons training restaurant on the campus of the private Macau University of Science and Technology (MUST) in Taipa. Photo: Monica Leong
This photo taken by The Macau Post Daily’s Office Manager Sally Chong as one of the members of the Press Judge Panel yesterday shows the winning “Feast” cake and showpiece created by Studio City’s Sam Wai Ian and Kuok Chi In.
