Panettone World Cup draws baking’s upper crust to Las Vegas — PHOTOS
The sniffs come short and quick or long and deep or a combination of both as the judges smell chunks and slices of panettone, assessing the Italian fruitcakes for the proper aroma, at the Coppa del Mondo del Panettone — the Panettone World Cup — on Tuesday in Las Vegas.
Pity the poor panettone that most Americans know, typically at Christmas, a commercially packaged specimen at once dry and overwhelmed by candied orange. These are not those panettone.
Loaf standards
These loaves, their domes emerging from round paper forms, are the exemplars of the art of panettone, entered in the contest by bakers from across the Americas, and they are here to be judged by a panel of international pastry chefs. The winning panettones head to the World Final in Milan in November.
The desired aroma is sweet and bready, but never cloying, with pings of citrus and a gentle tang from the dough fermentation. But that tang should never become too sharp.
“No acidity in the smell and flavor. Fermentation is not acidity,” chef Giuseppe Piffaretti, creator of the Coppa, said at the event, part of the International Baking Industry Exposition at the Las Vegas Convention Center.
The judges also rated the interior structure of the loaves, which were sliced in half, then presented to each judge in turn. Some took images with their smartphones. The panettone, Piffaretti said, should offer evenly distributed fruit and an airy crumb — “round holes and long holes but not too big.”
A big win
As the contest proceeded, chunks and slices of uneaten panettone filled golden trays in front of the panel. With pastry chef precision, they neatly arranged the remains of the judging.
The panettone, about 20 in all, were judged in the traditional fruitcake category and the modern chocolate category. Every year, a couple of entries don’t appear, said Valentina Merra, a project manager with the Coppa. (This year, for instance, a panettone from Mexico couldn’t clear customs.)
Chef Jaime Martinez from St. Paul, Minnesota, took the wins in the traditional and chocolate categories. He can’t enter both at the World Final, so he’s choosing to compete with a traditional panettone.
On Tuesday, Martinez achieved what Merra described as the panettone ideal. “A good balance between all the ingredients. A nice smell, nice shape, nice flavor.” At the same time, she added, “panettone is not a recipe. It’s a way of life.”
Contact Johnathan L. Wright at jwright@reviewjournal.com. Follow @JLWTaste on Instagram.
