Categories

Baguette, Specialty and Ethnic Breads: This category requires a strong knowledge of artisan bread baking with skills in molding techniques, artistic shaping and scoring of breads. Competitors express principles of quality, esthetics, and professional methods through their breads. The baguette demonstrates a contestant’s fundamental skills in a bread variety that is universally accepted. The French baguette must weigh exactly 250 grams. Contestants make 25 traditionally shaped baguettes as well as 25 non-traditionally shaped baguettes. Judges look for a crispy light brown crust, a variety in the size of holes in the crumb, and a taste relevant to the pre-ferments used. Specialty breads and ethnic breads are made with different flours following traditional methods, giving contestants an opportunity to express creativity and demonstrate specialties from their country. Contestants must make three different types of specialty breads and one specialty ethnic bread. They have one hour the night before the competition to mix pre-ferments. During the eight-hour competition each contestant will make approximately 50 baguettes, 30 specialty breads and one large ethnic bread, plus smaller pieces for tasting. Past winning specialty breads include beer bread, corn bread, ciabatta, naan, and rustic spelt bread.

Viennoiserie: The sweet-yeasted Viennese-style pastry in this category is an international product that allows competitors to demonstrate principles of quality, esthetics and professional methods through a great diversity of products. Viennoiserie must be yeast-risen and produced from raised dough fermented) and raised puffed dough. These pastries involve laminated dough (such as croissant and danish) and sweet or enriched baked goods (such as brioche). Competitors must use both yeast-risen and laminated yeast-risen doughs to make five different examples of Viennoiserie. Contestants must produce 18 pastries from each type of sweet dough – three pieces weighing 300 grams and 15 pieces weighing 60 to 100 grams and matching the larger pastry – for a total of 90 pastries. The judges look at laminating techniques, volume, fermentation, appearance, taste and adherence to rules.

Artistic Design: This decorative category involves creating a visually attractive showpiece made entirely of edible ingredients representing the theme: “Your country’s emblem through bread.” This art form — as practiced in European competitions — is sophisticated and challenging with thematic integrity an essential part of the entry. Competitors must create a sculpture that fits within one cubic meter. The theme often relates to regional specialties, artistic styles or history of the country the team represents. Past contestants have used coffee extract as ink to apply traditional fine art and decorative techniques of wood graining and silk screening to their pieces. A sugar mixture glues the pieces together.

Savory Selection: This new category requires all three team members to work closely together to create a catering piece that combines their knowledge. They must produce 160 savory salted rolls, pastries and club sandwiches, plus a rectangular sandwich bread to be tasted and graded by the judges. The 160 savory selections must be designed as part of the artistic piece and fit into the theme: “Your country’s emblem through bread.”

Coupe du Monde

The Coupe du Monde de la Boulangerie is an international artisan bread baking competition held every three years in Paris, France. Organized in 1992 by Christian Vabret, president of the Ecole Française de Boulangerie d’Aurillac, the Coupe du Monde is the world’s only competition where bakers who practice the craft of artisan baking can compete against the many old-world traditions of the various countries involved. The purpose of the competition is to gather artisan bakers from around the world to celebrate their profession, share knowledge of artisan baking techniques, and reinstate the value and restore the image of the artisan baking profession.

Also known as the World Cup or Olympics of Baking, the Coupe du Monde takes place at Europain — the world bakery, patisserie and catering exhibition in Paris. The exhibition attracts more than 80,000 visitors. Inside the exhibition hall, four of the 12 teams compete daily in individual 12-by 12-foot bakeries. Each team consists of three members representing the best artisan bakers from the 12 countries invited to compete. Teams are given eight hours to produce a specific number of baked goods for each of four categories: Baguette, Specialty and Ethnic Breads, Viennoiserie, Artistic Design, and Savory Selection. Team members must carefully choreograph and practice their routines in order to mix, shape and bake the 332 world-class baked goods that they produce in the small bakery in only eight hours. A committee of judges from each country represented then votes on the breads (judges must abstain from voting for their own country). A first, second and third place country is chosen based on the overall team effort.

The Bread Bakers Guild of America fully supports the goals of the Coupe du Monde. The Guild successfully petitioned to send a U.S. team to the international event in 1994 and has continued to send teams ever since. Both the 1994 and 1996 American teams placed in the Top Six, guaranteeing an invitation to the next competition. In 1996, the U.S. team upset the French with a first-place win in the Baguette and Specialty Breads category. In 1999, Bread Bakers Guild Team USA stunned the international baking community and brought great pride to the U.S. artisan baking industry by winning the Coupe du Monde. Team USA 2002 returned home with the silver – victorious and proud. And, Bread Bakers Guild Team USA 2005 once again proved to the world that Americans do make great bread by bringing the gold back to the United States!

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