Mon dieu! The international Food Events Newswire reports that Japan has defeated perennial favo-urite France in the 2025 World Pastry Cup! What was worse – the Japanese team also won the pres-tigious competition last year!
Japanese Team accepts the 2025 Pastry World Cup trophy, in Lyon, France, January 21…
There’s a general perception in the dessert sphere that the French have an ancient and traditional lock on the art of dessert-making. Apparently, that’s not true. At least – if it ever WAS true – it isn’t any longer…
Years of preparation
It takes years of preparation to compete successfully in an event such as the Pastry World Cup. And we all know how determined some competitors can become, to be recognised as the top practi-tioners of their art.
Well… It wasn’t enough for the Japanese to win last year’s Cup, supplanting more traditional partici-pants, notably France. But they’ve repeated that feat in the 2025 Cup!
What they did
The victorious Japanese team had to come up with three desserts that represented their country and culture: a frozen dessert, a restaurant dessert, and a ‘show’ chocolate. They also had to employ tra-ditional ingredients that represented their national cuisines. And they had just 5 hours to do it.
“We packed the history and culture of Japan into [our] design,” said chef Masanori Hata, the choco-late expert on his team. “We were able to incorporate taste and delicate traditional patterns to showcase our techniques.”
Not all blood, toil, tears and sweat…
It’s also become traditional for teams at the World Cup to sport traditional costumes. The Japanese wore authentic dragon caps celebrating their choice of the Dragon – Japan’s national mythical symbol – as the subject of their main dessert item.
Similarly, the UK team wore matching flat ‘newsboy’ caps and bow ties. And the Mexican contingent sported ferocious Day of the Dead Sugar Skull masks throughout the working portion of the com-petition.
Some top Ten finishers surprising…
Some of the countries that placed among the top ten finishers of the competition were unexpected – even surprising:
- Japan
- France
- Malaysia
- China
- Belgium
- Italy
- South Korea
- Singapore
- United Kingdom
- Argentina
I, personally, was shocked that Argentina, Malaysia, South Korea and the UK were among the official runners-up…
My take
I should – for the sake of due diligence and full transparency – mention that I, personally, did not expect the US or Canada to place in the Top 10. Thus, no excuses offered nor apologies extended…
But I did learn one thing: Dessert is much more than a Western tradition, hailing from the pastry tables of the patron state of Western cooking – France!
Vive les grands Chinoises!
~ Maggie J.