This year's Starchef's International Pastry Competition presented by PreGel and International Chef's Congress was one that brought immense chef star power to the floor of the Park Avenue Armory in New York and reaffirmed that pastry remains a strong point that continues to evolve itself in arena of fine dining.
DAY 1
The Congress opened on Sunday, September 30, 2012, with the Pastry Competition featuring 20 competitors presenting pre-desserts. Trends were abundant in this year with Asian influences throughout. Ingredients and flavors that were noticeable in many dishes included sesame, rice, mochi, yogurt, goat cheese and cucumber; microgreens were also well utilized throughout plates. Critical to a pre-dessert, the frozen element that seemed most prominent this year was the semifreddo, the Italian term for a dessert that is "half frozen."
Time was a concern for most of the competitors as they cut it to the wire to present their desserts to the judges. The judges included head judge Johnny Iuzzini, Michael Laiskonis, Jeffery Steingarten, Ramon Perez, Stephane Treand and Sandro Micheli. After the competition, Chef Laiskonis commented "Eating 20 plated desserts is a lot, there are only so many yogurt and goat cheese desserts you can eat in one morning, but overall the talent and dishes were great… some stood out and some left a little more to be desired." In the end, 10 competitors moved on to the next round which included:
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