Chef Courtney Weyl Out Blends the Competition for 2014 Vitamix Challenge Crown

014 Winner of the StarChefs.com Vitamix Challenge Announced 11.18.2014 09.09.2021

CLEVELAND — Courtney Weyl, pastry sous chef at wd~50 in New York City, successfully blended her way to the top during the recent 2014 Vitamix® Challenge at the StarChefs.com International Chefs Congress. Hundreds of chefs from across the country submitted original recipes in hopes of participating in the 2014 Challenge. Six finalists, including Weyl, were selected and tasked with creating a dish that showcased the Vitamix blender in unusual and innovative ways.

Sponsored exclusively by Vitamix, a world leader in high-performance blending equipment, the 2014 Vitamix Challenge took place on Oct. 27 in New York City. The six contestants had one hour to prepare and present a single dish that showcased originality, creativity and blending techniques to the judges. Points were awarded based on the unique use of a Vitamix, flavor and overall dish presentation.

Weyl’s winning dish, a flavorsome Chamomile Cake, was accented with chamomile-grapefruit sorbet, brown butter praline, popcorn mousse and popcorn meringue.

“Because the Vitamix is so powerful, I was able to blend hard caramel into a powder and emulsify that caramel with brown butter,” said Weyl, whose inspiration for the dish came from her life in New York and passion to put a spin on the classic desserts of her childhood.

The judging panel included Alex Guarnaschelli, Norman Van Aken, and Evan Hennessey, as well as Vitamix Recipe Development Manager and Chef Beverly Shaffer.

In addition to the title of 2014 Vitamix Challenge Champion, Weyl received the ultimate Vitamix package including a Vita-Prep® 3, a Vitamix XL®, The Quiet One®, and a $500 American Express gift certificate. Runner-up Melinda Dorn of L’Etoile in Madison, Wisconsin, received a Vita-Prep 3 and a $250 American Express gift certificate. All six contestants received a $500 certificate for travel to New York City, and a three-day Industry Pass to attend the StarChefs.com International Chefs Congress.

Visit http://www.starchefs.com/cook/icc-sponsor/vitamix/vitamix-challenge/2014 to learn more about the support Vitamix provided for StarChefs.com, including partnership information, product information, chef recommendations and testimonials, and recipes using Vitamix equipment.

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About Vitamix®

Vita-Mix® Corporation (“Vitamix”) is a privately held family-owned and -operated company founded in 1921 that manufactures high-performance blending equipment for home and commercial use. The company’s commercial customer list reads like a “Who’s Who” of major restaurant chains, and gourmet chefs say their Vitamix machines are as important to them as their knives. A recognized leader in marketing and product innovation, Vitamix founder William G. “Papa” Barnard created one of the first infomercials in 1949 to demonstrate how the Vitamix blender could help people improve their health with whole foods, and the company developed the first true commercial blender in the early 1990s, which ignited the smoothie movement. Vitamix, whose products are known worldwide for their performance, durability, and reliability, continues to win awards for product innovation and is a recipient of the president’s prestigious “E” Award for Exports. Headquartered in Olmsted Township, Ohio, 19 miles from Cleveland, Vitamix products are manufactured in Northeast Ohio and sold in approximately 100 countries. For more information, please visit www.vitamix.com.

About StarChefs.com

StarChefs.com™, the magazine for culinary insiders, has been serving the restaurant industry since 1995. StarChefs.com’s original culinary content is driven by in-person tastings and interviews across the world. Its mission is to catalyze culinary professionals’ success and give them the tools they need to overcome their specific challenges. In addition to featuring top chefs, pastry chefs, sommeliers, and mixologists, StarChefs.com’s Culinary JobFinder is the leading job board connecting culinary and hospitality professionals to careers in the foodservice industry. StarChefs.com™ features more than 30,000 published pages of original, chef-focused culinary content and generates traffic of over 30 million hits a month and was nominated for Best Web Site for Food and Nutrition by the James Beard Foundation.