Sweet Constructions

All the competitors, the guest judges,
and the chefs who helped the team and organized the event
(photo credit to ?)

Quite a while ago the FCI held a pastry showpiece competition. Teams of four had to create a multi-media showpiece and petit four/bonbon, all the proposals were judged and our teams advanced to the finals. For the finals each team created the showpiece and 24 pieces of their petit four. I was on one of the teams!

Our showpiece!

My team, Team Composition, created a cello out of chocolate, held up on a piece of pastillage painted to look like composition paper, perched on a poured sugar base, with pulled sugar roses. Our petit four was a very delicate lemon curd tart with blueberries.

Our petits fours (photo credit?)

Our competition was a team made up of our classmates, a team from a Level 2 class, and a team of just graduated students. All of the teams made beautiful showpieces and delicious petits fours.

We came in second (according to one of the judges, a very close second) to our classmates. If we were going to lose, I'm glad it was to them!

The winning showpiece: congrats Erin, Emma, Rozette, and Dayana!

Anyway, now that you know what happened let me tell you a bit about our showpiece. With help from Chef Michael we designed a 3-D, hollow body cello--I will take credit for the many drafts of to scale sketches and the eventual diagrams and templates.

The sketch we submitted.
As you can see we made some changes to the design,
but the fundamentals remained the same.

The body is made of chocolate sprayed with chocolate spray to give it some texture (impressive work, Sam). The stylized neck and end pin are made of unsweetened chocolate that was rubbed with a bit of oil to give it shine. The strings are made of spaghetti brushed with gold luster dust. It is supported by a beautifully thin pastillage stand and embellished with pastillage music notes (great job, Kedby). The base is made of 3 graduated poured sugar tear drops died with just a tiny drop of green to give it the appearance of glass. The roses are expertly pulled sugar (beautiful, Caitlyn). The petits fours were made by yours truly and were delicious if I do say so myself. In the end the judges thought we should have made a bonbon--we almost did but decided to show off different skills since we figured the showpiece demonstrated our chocolate work well enough. Ah well, you never know what judges will think. Even though we did lose, I'm really proud of our showpiece and petit four. We did great work under significant restraints. And it's a bit of a blessing in disguise because the prize is to make a giant version, which seems like a bit more work than prize. Regardless, I competed in probably my only pastry competition ever (I can't imagine when I'd do another one) and am proud of the result--I think that's a win!

Another picture of our showpiece