On Saturday 12 March we held the inaugural Seido Auckland Cheesecake Competition.  Despite being a thinly disguised attempt by Kyoshi Louise to eat as many cheesecakes as possible, the standard of creativity was nothing short of spectacular.

First prize went to Alex and Catrin Ogilvie, assisted by Brett and Caroline, with a vanilla bean Honbu (New York) baked cheesecake with plum blossom coulis, dressed in a white belt with correctly tied obi and explanatory card with Japanese translation.  (I know – amazing huh?!)  Also, it tasted nice.

Close behind however, was Bob and Hazel Cook’s berry cheesecake entry, decorated with berries, blue Seido Juku kanji embroidered on white chocolate and accompanied with dark chocolate karateka complete with blue belts.  As Bob puts it, just walking past this cheesecake means you take in calories.

Not to be outdone, Sensei Julie deserves a special mention in the innovation department for her vegan hippy trippy cheesecake, made with miso and agarve, decorated with cacao nibs and surrounded by dark chocolate shards (despite Kyoshi Mark’s underhanded attempts to sabotage them) to create a pa-style effect.  And hot dang, but Amy and Sherrie’s baked cheesecake with berry topping was nothing short of divine.  Then there was Senpai Sandra and Maeve’s baked cheesecake with marigold decoration – simple, but stylish and oh so delicious.

And we haven’t even got to Michael and Jove Kyriak’s cookies and cream cheesecake decorated with sharks.  A few heated words with lawyer Dad about the “or” statement in the 10 point bonus assessment criteria but no hard feelings.  In any normal competition, Dylan, Emily, and Gareth’s double chocolate orange and coffee cheesecake would have won but this, as you can gather, was no ordinary competition.  Kyoshi Mark had to graciously (ahem) settle for the kids choice award for his lime green jelly and kiwifruit topped cheesecake.

In any case, Kyoshi (judge’s decision is final but next years judgement can totally be bought – all major credit cards accepted) Louise got to eat a lot of cheesecake.  mmmmm…. cheesecake….