Who makes the best croissant in Denver? A group of professional pastry chefs gathered to find out.

It didn’t look like a classic croissant, and Deva Randolph still wasn’t sure what to call her creation even as she and a friend sliced one up to be served to a panel of judges on Wednesday.

“Is it a Danish?” her friend and assistant, Cameron Marter, asked. Its round shape and delicately laminated dough made it look more like a cronut — a cross between a croissant and a doughnut. Though with a coriander cream filling, manicured slices of blood orange and sprigs of fennel arranged on top, it also resembled a tart.

In the end, the name didn’t matter, at least to the hundred or so hungry people who turned out for the 3rd annual Golden Croissant, a friendly baking competition held at Rebel Bread in Denver. They devoured the samples. Randolph, the pastry chef at Elemental Bakery & Coffeehouse, and her teammate, Brendan Clark, took home the people’s choice award.

Organized by a consortium of professional bakers, the 5280 Pastry Co-Op, the Golden Croissant brought together a dozen local bakeries, who worked in the days beforehand to perfect their recipes, arriving on Wednesday with trays of croissants. Each brought two kinds, a plain butter croissant and a signature creation of their own choosing.

The judges tasted and inspected each one, breathing in the aromas and examining the laminate on the exteriors, while attendees watched from behind the glass-panel walls in Rebel Bread’s new bakery.

While Elemental won the people’s hearts, a new bakery called La Croissanterie impressed the panel of judges the most, and at the end of the night, its head pastry chef, Rafael de Jesus Rufino, took home top honors for the combination of his classic croissant and his signature, the “Raffaello,” a marbled butter croissant with coconut namelaka cream, white chocolate-coated pecan and a white coconut dusting.

La Croissanterie, which opened last year inside Ruby’s Good Shoes, a diner at 5405 E. 33rd Ave., may be new, but now its name will be engraved onto the trophy, a glittering gold-colored model of a croissant. It will join Keturah Fleming and her bakery La Fillette, who won both of the first two iterations of the competition.

Fleming, who was one of the judges this year, said the event’s growth is indicative of the large number of sophisticated bakeries that have opened in metro Denver in the past few years and of the camaraderie that exists between their pastry chefs.

“When I started the bakery — it’ll be 11 years in May — there weren’t a lot of bakeries,” said Fleming, who moved and expanded La Fillette, 6217 E. 14th Ave., in 2023. “It’s kind of cool to see this scene grow over the last decade, and then be able to have a space where like-minded people can get together and show off or see what they’re up against.”

Some bakers used the opportunity as a display of recently gained talents.

When Alya Contreras-Carrasco became a pastry chef at Gateaux in the Golden Triangle three years ago, the bakery didn’t have a croissant recipe, she said. Her boss encouraged her to find one and then test her skills.

“I’ve been trying to find stuff myself and practice lamination, which takes a lot more skill than I thought,” she said. “So I’m excited to be here around all these other people. They look amazing, their stuff.”

On Wednesday, she and her husband, Alberto, transferred pieces of her pre-sliced croissant creation onto trays. It was her take on a s’mores sandwich, with toasted marshmallow fluff, a brownie, ganache and chocolate chips.

“This has become my job at the bakery — to master the croissant. But I’m still working on it,” she said.

Stephanie Martin, a breakfast station cook at the Gaylord Rockies Resort and Convention Center, was persuaded to participate by Brian Reese, the resort’s sous chef and last year’s people’s choice winner.

Reese had shown Martin a recipe for a chicken-and-waffles croissant that was shaped, interestingly, like a couch, with the rising dough creating the cushions. She got up at 7 a.m. to proof the dough and finished the preparation, with its hot honey glaze and little round waffles for pillows, right before the event.

The experience had been “both enjoyable and incredibly stressful,” Martin said as she worked.

“I’ve personally never done a competition since high school, and I’ve never done a pastry competition,” she said. “I know this is sort of a fun environment where anyone with a passion can participate, but it’s been a massive learning process for me because I’ve never done a couch croissant.”

Later in the night, Fleming would give Martin’s couch a nod for creativity.

Other contestants included Moon Racoon Baking Co., Hearth, GetRight’s and Rebel Bread.

Randolph from Elemental rejoiced in her creation. “I saw the shape out in the world,” Randolph said. “And then the coriander spoke to me. I’ve never used it before in a sweet aspect.”

It was “peak blood orange” season, and she loved fennel, agreeing when her friend Marter called it a “less intimidating licorice.” She was most proud of Clark’s precious lamination on the croissants and her combination of flavors.

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