Pastry Challenge 2nd Edition at Christophe Roussel in La Baule

Events

What an unusual post this is… I took part in the Défi Pâtissier at Christophe Roussel’s nearly two and a half years ago. So why am I writing about it now, you might ask? Several reasons:

• Christophe Roussel has just announced the 5 finalists for the 4th edition of his competition. It obviously brought back wonderful memories. Some of them might like to know a little more about this competition. That’s what this article is for.

• I’m making up for an oversight. I never found the time to publish this article and it was missing from the blog (I love keeping a record of all the competitions I’ve entered, and this one was one of my most beautiful experiences).

• And I remember this event as if it were yesterday. Yet I have the memory of a goldfish, yes indeed. It’s hard for me to forget that famous October weekend… It was on the road to La Baule (with my other half by my side) that I found out I was pregnant <3

more It all started like this:

I was a bit late signing up to take part. My blogging friends Leila from Le Meilleur Pâtissier and Auriane from the blog Sucre d’orge et pain d’épices clearly inspired me to enter. The competition involved revisiting a French pastry classic, the opéra, incorporating Guérande fleur de sel. A tricky challenge for me, having never eaten an opéra in my life since I hate coffee. Quite a challenge! I spent a long time thinking about my dessert, sketching ideas, then got into the kitchen. After several attempts, I arrived at this result:

=> Comme un air d’Opéra: an individual entremet made up of a hazelnut/coffee joconde biscuit soaked in a coffee/tonka syrup, a Caraïbe 66% chocolate ganache with fleur de sel hiding at its heart a tonka bean cremeux, a sheet of dark chocolate, a whipped coffee ganache, all topped with a coffee tuile and cocoa nibs.

To have a chance of being selected by the chef, you needed to get as many online votes as possible. Christophe Roussel then had to choose 4 desserts from among the top 10 (I believe there were around thirty entries). 5th place went to a favourite dessert from the remaining entries.

The competition took place during the Fête du Chocolat weekend in La Baule. The jury was made up of Christophe Roussel (Relais Desserts member) and his wife Julie, Thierry Bamas (Meilleur Ouvrier de France), Cyril Cariani (winner of Le Meilleur Pâtissier), Jill Colonna and Mercotte, who need no introduction.

My dessert caught the chef’s attention, along with 4 others, as follows:

Once I arrived in La Baule, I met Catherine (accompanied by her wonderful partner Anne-Laure), Emilie, Laurie and Arnaud, with whom I had a wonderful time. A truly amazing team!

We had 3h30 to make our dessert in the chef’s kitchen (washing up included!). It’s not easy cooking in someone else’s kitchen, even less so when it’s a professional one, and when you’re not familiar with the oven or the blast chiller. But what an honour to be there! At first, the nerves set in, let’s be honest. A camera is trained on you and the jury moves around you, observing, tasting, asking questions. Strangely, you quickly forget about them because you’re in your own bubble. My goal was to produce my 6 opéra desserts — I’d practised at home with a timer, no time to look around.

Mercotte and Cyril were glued to their phones, doing a Facebook live. We were even receiving kind messages and encouragement in real time from friends and family following the competition on social media. That was lovely!

In the end, we all managed to plate up our 6 desserts on time and they really did match the expected look. That was already a first victory. The pressure lifted, we tidied up our workstations (Christophe and Julie gave us a hand, even during the challenge at times, which was really kind of them. It does get chaotic though!). We took a few souvenir photos and the afternoon was ours.

We were lucky — the weather was beautiful and La Baule is a really lovely little town. All dressed up, we then met the chef and the jury members in the late afternoon at the Chapelle Saint-Anne, where the Fête du Chocolat was taking place. Then the results came in at the end of the day: my opéra revisitation came first! That moment was simply incredible!! I felt immense joy and immense pride at having been chosen by the jury.

We were then invited to the restaurant at the Castel Marie-Louise for an exceptional evening of fine dining and good cheer. A truly remarkable evening during which you somehow manage to forget that you’re an amateur pastry enthusiast sitting alongside great pastry chefs. What brought us all together at that moment was our shared passion for pastry.

The next day, we all gathered for one last coffee together. A chance to extend this unforgettable experience a little and enjoy, once again, such a warm welcome.

We also stopped by Christophe Roussel’s boutique. A beautiful shop with desserts as delicious as they are beautiful. I took the opportunity to bring a whole host of desserts to some friends we were visiting afterwards.

Here are a few photos of everything I had the chance to taste.

And so this unforgettable experience came to an end. We left La Baule with heads full of memories, and a few tears when the time came to say goodbye to Christophe and Julie. It’s hard to explain, but we lived through such intense moments in such a short time. Thank you both for opening the doors of your kitchen and your daily life to us for a weekend.

The story didn’t quite end there… a few months later, around 7 months pregnant, I returned to La Baule with my other half for an extraordinary weekend at the Castel Marie-Louise — the prize I had been awarded for winning the competition. Christophe also opened the doors of his kitchen for a private lesson with one of his team. A chance to share in the daily life of his whole team. We made a delicious chocolate and orange entremet that I was then able to bring home 🙂

I was also able to see my dessert in the chef’s display window. What an incredible feeling! I can’t begin to describe the pride I felt seeing it there among the chef’s own creations ^^ Visually, it was beautiful (I loved the joconde biscuit, taller than in my version) and when it was cut, everything was there. True to what I had imagined and made during the competition. Apparently the dessert was very popular in the boutique — that makes me all the more happy.

Best of luck to the 5 new finalists!

Photo credits: most of these photos were taken by my other half or myself, or by my fellow competitors on the day. Some were taken by Michel Oriot, journalist for Ouest-France.