French baker Dimitri Bordon won the “chocolatine” and pain au chocolat world cup on Sunday, organized near Toulouse, against around twenty competitors from twelve different countries. The 29-year-old Gersois, who works in a bakery in Cugnaux, a suburb of Toulouse, was chosen by a jury of 18 professionals from the catering industry.
“It’s a huge honor,” he said after receiving his award. “Especially when we see the candidates, the products that came out, the jury, it’s scary!” He narrowly won ahead of his compatriot Tom Jean, who came second, by offering, in particular, as a revisited pastries – one of the two competition tests – a Sichuan pepper chocolate bread in the shape of a windmill, decorated with tangerine jelly, bitter orange and yuzu juice.
The Italian Mirko Zenatti completes the podium and wins the special prize from a second jury, this time composed of individuals. Twenty candidates from twelve different countries, including Saudi Arabia, Cameroon, Canada, Ivory Coast, Egypt, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Tunisia and Vietnam, competed in this second edition of the test. France had four representatives, as did Morocco, and Cameroon had fielded two candidates.
The name of this competition, the “chocolatine/pain au chocolat” world cup, illustrates the rivalry in France between these two names, “chocolatine” being mainly used in the South-West, as at the Toulouse exhibition center (MEETT ), where the test took place. Under the eye of more than a hundred curious people, the twenty competitors had to make 24 of these pastries, including 12 classics and 12 revisited, all of a precise weight (between 70 and 90 grams) and using the same ingredients (butter, chocolate).
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They were evaluated according to criteria of cooking, regularity, quality of the puff pastry, taste and texture. Guy Orsini, a 29-year-old candidate from Corsica, chose to draw inspiration from the clementines of his childhood to offer a revisited version with 70% guanaja chocolate and candied clementine cream, in the shape of a bow tie. Thuy Vien, 35, born in France but who on Sunday represented the country where she grew up, Vietnam, combined dragon fruit and calamansi (a citrus fruit), in a “chocolatine” that looks like a flower.