Weert baker Hans Vries wins title for best vlaai of 2023

Baker Hans Vries of the Vries bakery in Weert has won the annual competition between Limburg and Noord-Brabant bakers to deliver the best vlaai of the year. Vries’s vlaai had the best baking quality, crust color, base, filling, and, of course, taste and aroma, the jury ruled, 1Limburg reports.

Vlaai is a baked sweet pie-like pastry, typically with a fruit filling. The pastry is traditionally associated with the Limburg provinces in the Netherlands and Belgium, but is also very popular in Noord-Brabant and elsewhere in the country.

Each participant in the annual vlaai competition has to submit two pastries. The jury, chaired by Marcel Roubroeks this year, carefully tasted many small bites of vlaai and scored them on the above criteria. The winner is the baker who scored the highest average on both vlaai. Vries won convincingly.

The Vries bakery has been making vlaai for 600 years, and still, baker Vries finds the annual vlaai competition very stressful, he told L1. He is delighted with the win. “There’s nothing as beautiful as making a product from A to Z,” baker Vries said.