A scene from Roman Holiday, with Audrey Hepburn enjoying a gelato on the Spanish Steps under the eye of Gregory Peck, inspired the gelato and pastry project that won the first Carpigiani Gelato Baking Competition. The winners were Tan Dongmei and Wu Zhongxuan of Jiangnan University in China.

The winners

The two students took home a cash prize and a gelato course at Carpigiani Gelato University in Italy, flights included. Their project also won the Creativity Award. Two other teams received the Best Style Award: Xiayidan Julaiti and Aerhasi Yeliboli of Shanghai Jiaotong University with “Soulmate”, and Zou Yuke and Chen Shilin of Sichuan Agricultural University with “Tianfu Forest”. A further Creativity Award went to “The Universe” by Luo Honyan and Teng Jialu of Jiangnan University.

How the competition worked

Thirty-three two-person teams, not necessarily from the same school, entered the preliminary qualifiers. Twenty teams reached the finals and presented creative gelato and pastry projects that included product development and a marketing plan. Of 39 universities registered for the preliminary round, 16 reached the four-day final. All had nutritional science and agriculture programmes, and came from eight countries:

• China: Jiangnan University, Southwest University, Shanghai Jiaotong University, Sichuan Agricultural University, Agricultural University of Hebei Province, Hezhou University, China Agricultural University and Hunan University of Chinese Medicine.
• Thailand: Kasetsart University and Prince of Songkla University.
• Poland: Wroclaw University of Environmental and Life Sciences.
• South Korea: Kangwon National University.
• Cambodia: Royal University of Agriculture.
• Russia: Moscow State University.
• New Zealand: Massey University.
• United States: Chicago University.

The jury was led by Giancarlo Timballo, president of the Gelato World Cup Committee, and included Shi Jianmeng of China West Point Baking Education and Training; Keshavan Niranjan, professor of Food Bioprocessing at Reading University in the UK; Cheng Gang of Baked Flying Academy; Lu Chaolei, one of China’s first and most important gelato masters; Su Wei of Shanghai Bakers Management Consulting Company; Wang Wei, professor at Jiangnan University’s Food College; and Liu Jun, professor of gourmet pastry and executive bakery chef at the Huanglong Hotel in Hangzhou.

The event belongs to the wider “Belt and Road University Alliance for Food Science and Education”, which links leading international universities in food and technology, with the support of the Gelato and Culture Association, high-level food research schools, food research bodies in Jiangsu province, the Pastry Association in China and the research centre of Jiangnan University. Carpigiani sponsored the project.

What this means for gelato makers in New Zealand

Massey University took part for New Zealand, a nice sign of how global gelato education has become. If you want to learn the craft yourself, Majors Group offers training through Carpigiani Gelato University, and our gelato pastry solutions show how gelato and pastry can work together.

Source: Carpigiani news. Rewritten for New Zealand by Majors Group.