PHILADELPHIA, PA (June, 2007) – With the wedding season upon us, RiverCrest Golf Club Pastry Chef, Eric Boerner took home the prizes for “Most Artistic Wedding Cake” and “Best of Show” at the Let Them Eat Cake wedding cake competition held annually to benefit The City of Hope Cancer Foundation at The Park Hyatt Hotel in Philadelphia. Eric’s creation, pictured below, consisted of a Chocolate Fudgecake filled with Banana-Caramel Mousse, Swiss Buttercream and was covered in Rolled Fondant. The decoration features what Boerner describes as ‘Art Deco meets Industrial Greyscale’, a description reflecting his use of black, silver, grey and white in varying relief and textile pattern. As a first–time participant in the event, he felt different would be best. “I had no idea of whom or what was going to be presented at the competition because Philadelphia is home to a lot of talented decorators – about 50 people entered and it turned out to be a relative Who’s Who of the restaurant community. I assumed there would be a lot of grand, traditional work with cascading flowers and the like, so I decided to go with a concept that was unique and I guess it paid off. Having judged a lot of competitions myself, I know you can get overwhelmed by the same genre of entries and you really look forward to judging something different.”  His choice of flavors also followed the approach of not following what everyone else would likely do. “Of course, there would be plenty of poundcakes with buttercream, so I made something a lot more moist and included a fruit filling to keep it from being heavy. How can you lose with bananas and chocolate?” 600 attendees and a panel of 10 judges agreed.

Boerner, a Chef Instructor with The Art Institute of Philadelphia, also coached the winning student entry. “I had 5 students compete and they all did a fantastic job- any one of them could have claimed the prize.” And what a prize to claim – two roundtrip airfares to Europe courtesy of Continental Airlines, a sponsor of the event. “What better gift to a young culinarian?”, asked Boerner.  Eric will be using his award to travel to Alaska in the Fall . “Now, it’s all about defending the title next year,” said Eric. “I’m already planning next year’s cake and I’m going to try and go way over the top with a lot of sugar and chocolate sculpture – think Bobby Fischer meets Camelot.”  The event raised over $40,000 for The City of Hope Foundation.

Prior to his inclusion in the RiverCrest Golf Club opening team, Boerner has also worked as Pastry Chef for Striped Bass, Tony Clark’s,  MainStreet Restaurant Group of Manayunk and the Rittenhouse Hotel and Condominiums. He is a graduate of Johnson & Wales University in Providence Rhode Island and L’Ecole du Gran Chocolat-Valrhona, in Tain l’Hermitage, France. He has been featured on the PBS series “Flavors of America with Jim Coleman” and is the dessert author of The Rittenhouse Cookbook.