From country fairs to The Great British Bake Off, we all know how serious competitive baking can get. And right now, things are heating up for a team of Australians in training for the Panettone World Championships in Verona and Milan this October.

As panettone continues its controversial rise, team Australia, led by Oji House and Q le Baker founder Quentin Berthonneau, will compete against teams from 11 other countries, including Argentina, Japan and reigning champion Italy.

Berthonneau, who captained the French team in 2023 before Australia was part of the competition, is joined by To Be Frank founder Franco Villalva, Abbots and Kinney founder Johnny Pisanelli and AP Bakery head pastry chef Simon Veauvy.

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Winning, Berthonneau tells Broadsheet, “requires lots of training, and really good communication”. The Aussie team has already done three training sessions, and Berthonneau and Villalva are continuing to practice and experiment at To Be Frank Collingwood this week (where a small number of test panettones will be available to purchase for $55).

There’s an “intense and moist”, chocolate panettone made with Valrhona chocolate, plus a classic Milanese version, which includes an orange paste blended with vanilla and honey. “This is traditional, but done with the hope to make it amazing and finish on the podium,” says Berthonneau. Traditional panettone is one of the competition categories, so finding a fresh spin on an old recipe is a possible path to victory.

In June, Berthonneau and Villalva will fly to Sydney and continue training at AP Bread, where they’ll also sell their test products.

The championship launched in 2019 and is held every other year. The first two editions were singles competitions, but in 2023, it became a team contest. The governing body is the Accademia dei Maestri del Lievito Madre e del Panettone Italiano, an institution “born from the widespread need to defend, promote and disseminate the artisan production of leavened products with mother yeast”. The organisation claims the Panettone World Championships is “the only team championship in the world, with products made live, respecting the strict competition rules and under the watchful eyes of the inspectors.”

To compete, each team must use a mother yeast from its home country to make: 10 identical classic Italian panettones, 10 identical chocolate panettones, 10 identical “innovative” panettones with ice-cream, 20 identical single-portion products “made with traditional panettone dough according to the principles of the circular economy with the goal of minimising food waste”, a flower-shaped sourdough weighing between four and five kilograms, and three freely-decorated panettones. The team also has to prepare a presentation table that serves as a tribute to Milan’s fashion.