Despite the cancellation of the event proper, an alternative lockdown version of the World Porridge Making Championships went ahead on Saturday with winners unveiled through a day of video reveals online.
Ten in total scooped prizes which were revealed in a staggered fashion on the golden spurtle Facebook page from 9am to 6pm yesterday.
Fittingly the 2020 Virtual Spurtle event took place on World Porridge Day, a day dedicated to celebrating the popularity of the dish as well as raising awareness and funds for Scottish charity Mary’s Meals who provide porridge to more than 1.5 million children in 18 countries every day at school.
The competition attracted entries from across the globe, with porridge fans from Lithuania, Catalonia, Scotland, England, Canada and Germany submitting their recipes to be scrutinised by the expert judging panel.
The 10 winners included four from Scotland, four from England and two from Canada.
The judging panel marked the videos on five criteria including virtual taste – whether they wanted to taste the dish, appearance, execution, originality and flair.
The overall winner was Chris Young from Crieff in Perthshire who created Crunch sa Bheul, Gaelic for crunch in the mouth, a Scottish take on croquembouche, made with oatflour, sugar and butter, piped with cream and dipped in caramel.
Mr Young is the owner of Perthshire Oatcakes, and was the Speciality Porridge Champion at the 2018 World Porridge Making Championships.
The runner up was the current world porridge making champion, Lisa Williams from Trimley St Mary in Suffolk, whose ‘Porridge of Hope’ featured ‘pinoat’ butter, honey bananas and chocolate, served with a rainbow fruit kebab.
Other recipes in the top 10 were:
- Porridge pina colada
- Blueberry cheesecake porridge
- Oatmeal inspired duck confit taco
- Golden milk porridge
- Triple coffee oatmeal with Dalgona whip and mocca grande
- Nanaimo bar oatmeal
- Raspberry cranachan porridge
- Scottish summer porridge
Charlie Miller of Carrbridge Community Council, who organise the competition, said: “While we were of course hugely disappointed not to be able to host the World Championships in Carrbridge this year, we’ve been delighted with the response to the Virtual Spurtle.
“Many thanks to everyone who entered, congratulations to our top 10 finalists, to our winner and runner up, to our judges, and to everyone who has watched the videos online.
“We look forward to welcoming everyone back to Carrbridge next October for the 2021 championships.”
Alan Meikle of sponsors Hamlyns of Scotland said: “The Virtual Spurtle was a great alternative to the annual competition in Carrbridge.
“We’ve seen some really fabulous recipe ideas in the top 10 videos and look forward to downloading some of the recipes from the Golden Spurtle website so we can try them for ourselves.”
Videos and recipes for the virtual entries are now available on the Golden Spurtle website at www.goldenspurtle.com