Taiwanese Baker Wins 4 Gold, 2 Bronzes in Culinary Competition|麵包師張晏瑜 國際餐飲賽奪4金2銅

Taiwanese baker Chang Yan-Yuh became the pride of Taiwan after he recently won 4 gold and 2 bronzes at the 2018 AFA World Culinary Competition, held in South Korea. His medal count was the highest ever by one chef at the competition.


The miniature statue of knife wielding Guan Yu, an ancient army general during the Han dynasty in China, is made entirely out of bread and is edible. 38-year old baker Chang Yen-Yuh is the artist behind the creation. He recently took part in the 2018 AFA World Culinary Competition, and took 4 gold and 2 bronzes in six categories against competitors from 13 countries.

The most difficult part about creating the statue of Guan Yu is his facial expression, especially his eyes. Also, the expression of his famous horse, the "Red Hare", is quite hard to make.

The bread statue isn't Chang's only creation. He also made an artistic pastry piece in the likeness of Caishen, the ancient Chinese God of Wealth. Chang even made 200 individual gold ingots to decorate the base of the statue. He experienced a number of failures when trying to create smaller parts. And he has to take the local moisture level into consideration while strictly controlling the time and temperature of the pastry to make the shapes he wanted.

There were a lot of technique challenges when I tried to make his left and right sleeves. The dough was pressed to as thin as possible, and if I bake it at 150 degrees Celsius for 30 minutes, the sleeves would simply fall off.

Chang's father is also a baker, therefore he began learning bakery at the age of 13. Chang studied advertising design at high school, and the experience further inspired him to create artwork with bread and pastry. Chang is actively teaching in local culinary schools in hopes to foster more talents in the future.