Cedrick Ward claims Top Titan Chef honors | PHOTO GALLERY

ALBANY — Albany Technical College (ATC) has a new king of the kitchen as Culinary Arts student Cedrick Ward was named the first ever Top Titan Chef after emerging victorious in cooking competition held Friday at the school.

Mobile users can view the photo gallery of the first Albany Tech Titan Top Chef competition here.

The contest was set up in three elimination rounds that began with Ward squaring off against fellow students Shaquita Jones, Courtni Thomas and Jeremy Troup, all of whom graduated from the program this semester and volunteered to test their meddle in the kitchen.

“It’s a great way for the students to feel some pressure and to have a good time,” said ATC culinary arts department head chef Todd White. “They had to have confidence and passion for cooking to volunteer for this and to perform in this setting.”

That setting saw each of the four students compete in a 20-minute opening round where they prepared an appetizer using ingredients provided by White and fellow chef Matthew Beard.

Each student presented their appetizer to a panel of four judges which scored the dishes using a 10 point scale, on the categories of taste, presentation, creativity and sanitation.

After round one, Troup was eliminated and the remaining competitors then had a 50 minutes to prepare an entree consisting of a main dish and sides.

During this round students were able to choose a protein out of a group of items that included ground beef, bacon, chicken breast, rack of lamb and a whole duck. Side items, such as a starch or vegetables, could be prepared using anything found in the kitchen.

After presenting their dishes to the judges, who used the same scoring system, Thomas was eliminated, leaving Jones and Ward to duke it out in the final round.

The final, dessert round proved to be the most challenging for the competitors due to the types of main ingredients provided and because of the 20-minute time frame to prepare their dishes.

Both competitors encountered difficulty as Jones did not have enough time to complete her pecan bars and Ward was unable to make crepes without them sticking.

Despite those obstacles both students adapted and came up with edible dishes on the fly, which drew rave results from the judges, who were overall impressed with all of the students.

“I thought the whole thing was great,” said Albany Mayor Dorothy Hubbard who served as one of the four judges. “I’m glad I took the time to come and be a part of this, which is the first of its kind. I think it gave the young people some experience and something to evaluate themselves with. I think it gave them the confidence and encouragement they’re going to need to go out in the community and work. You are going to make a mistake but you do something to correct it, you don’t give up and I liked seeing that.”

Stewart Campbell, co-owner of Stewbo’s Restaurant Group, which owns Local Jerry’s, The Catch Seafood House and Oyster Bar, Henry Campbell’s Steakhouse, Merry Acres Inn & Events Center, and Harvest Moon, also enjoyed seeing the students navigate the pressure the competition provided as it was not unlike what is seen in a real restaurant.

“Doing this is great experience,” Campbell said. “It’s very hectic in a restaurant and they need to be able to deal with that when they go out in the world.”

For winner Ward, who is returning to ATC next semester to further his degree, he is hoping to one day parlay this success into a successful business of his own.

“I’ve been watching cooking shows for years and also wanted to be in something like this,” said Ward. “I can’t believe I won. I’m going to continue going to school, eventually getting my bachelor’s at Valdosta State and then opening a restaurant.”

White is hoping this will be the first of many competitions the school will host to give the students something to strive for.

“I would love to do this every semester if we could,” White said. “We’ll definitely do it at least every year. I students really enjoyed it and they need to have fun in the kitchen.”