National Pastry Team Championship

(Now known as the Club Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie Team USA National Selection)

Selection process for Team USA to compete for World Pastry Cup

The 2009 National Pastry Team Championship competition,
hosted by Amoretti, took place July 6-7
at the JW Marriott Desert Ridge Resort & Spa, in Phoenix, Arizona.

Anthony Smith, Bill Foltz and Ebow Dadzie competed on Team Dadzie

Chef Smith created the chocolate showpiece and the bonbons.

The chocolate showpiece featured a huge monarch butterfly and a big zinnia flower done in beautiful color gradients, along with an intricate set of gears.

The bonbons were presented on a small sugar sculpture in three variations.

After the sugar and chocolate showpieces are completed in the box kitchens, they must be moved to the display table for judging.

Only a very small percentage of work could be done in advance of the competition, and there were strict rules* about the kinds of molds a team could bring (see blurb at bottom). Anthony had to stay super organized and work cleanly while performing a multitude of tasks (tempering, mixing, molding, cutting, sculpting, coloring, assembling, etc) in an extremely small space, shared with his teammates. Bill and Ebow were experiencing the same.

The Amoretti National Pastry Championships were held in 2005, 2007, 2009, and 2011. The competition has since been restructured and is now called the Club Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie Team USA National Selection. The location and terms of the competition are different, although the goal remains the same: to determine which team of chefs will represent the United States on Pastry Team USA, and then go to Lyon, France to compete at the International Coupe du Monde de la Pâtisserie (World Pastry Cup).

The National Pastry Team Championship at the time Anthony competed on Team Dadzie in 2009, involved eight teams, each with three professional pastry chefs, who competed for thirteen hours over the course of two days.

They had to make:  

  • Sugar showpiece
  • Chocolate showpiece
  • Chocolate bonbons (three types)
  • Entremet
  • Entremets glacè
  • Plated dessert
  • Petits gateaux

Coached by Steve Evetts, Team Dadzie did practice runs prior to the competition at Paris Gourmet, where each of the chefs have studied.

The competition assessed chefs’ skills in chocolate and sugar artistry, as well as their ability to create desserts that taste the best.

The criteria was taste, presentation, technique, and creativity.

Team Dadzie wins the Bronze!

Congrats to Team Chowdry! Good luck on Team USA!

Recipes from Team Dadzie appear in the 2012 book “Plating for Gold”.

*Rules Against Using Molds

“Championship rules are very strict about teams bringing molds (other than simple geometric shapes) already made into the competition kitchens.

Molds can be assembled during the competition from parts, however (e.g., silicon “noodles”), as long as they can be deconstructed so the parts don’t resemble a mold. (Chef Bill Foltz of Team Dadzie used this to great effect on their sugar showpiece.)

A large tub of cocoa powder is used as the medium for creating free-form molds for pieces that will be incorporated into a chocolate showpiece.

Anthony Smith, the Chef in charge of making the chocolate showpiece for his team, has used his hands to create indentations in the cocoa powder and is pouring tempered chocolate into the indentations.

When the chocolate has cooled and crystallized, the piece can be removed from the powder and the powder removed if desired.

This technique does not lend itself to all showpiece designs but it can be very effective for casting decorative (as opposed to structural) pieces when it is appropriate.”

Clay Gordon, Pastry Profiles