Up Close & Personal at WGS2009

I had a wonderful experience at the World Gourment Summit (WGS) 2009 at its Patisserie Industry Workshop today! I did not expect such as eventful afternoon, held at Singapore Tourism Board Auditorium, to be free!! Anyway, I signed partly because it was free, secondly because it was titled "Patisserie". Any workshops with "Patisserie" cannot be too far off from pastries and cakes right?


Initially, the programme was to start at 3pm and end at 5.30pm. However, I was informed by the organiser that it will start at 2pm and end at 5pm. Isn't that better for me then. Actually, I didn't know what to expect during this workshop, so I went there with an open mind, hoping to learn from the big names about baking and patisserie. Anyway, it was a good thing I dragged my spouse along with me too.

The event began with an opening from Peter Knipp, followed by a presentation of ready-made chocolates being transformed into beautiful petit fours. This was presented by Chef Franck Michel, World Pastry Champion USA (Phoenix, 2006), MOF Pastry Chef. We had a sample of those beautiful chocolate balls he made.


Next were the presentation by the winning Singapore National Pastry Team, lead by Chef Pang from Canele Pastisserie. They showcased their sugar sulptures, and re-created their winning desserts for us to try. Wasn't that a wonderful experience? On top of that, we still get to eat cakes and macarons!! It's such a treat! What more can I ask for? The chefs are Ruben Sosa, Hoi Kuoki, Jackie Lee (lady) and Ng Chee Leong. All of them looked very young, but very experienced and professional!


Actually each presentation was supposed to be 45mins. But I guess this team over-ran. So subsequent presentations were late. The next presentation was by Oriol Balaguer from Spain. His English was quite mimimal, though we did understand his explanation. He presented two items: (1) The 7 Textures and (2) Meringue Ice Cream and Lime. His presentation of the two desserts were really impressive! He went through step-by-step, and was even generous enough to give us recipe!

The last, but not least was the sharing of Valrhona with Tea by Vincent Bourdin. He is Valrhona Singapore Regional Pastry Chef. He taught us how to infuse tea with valrhona, and how to pair the various valrhona chocolates with the different types of teas. This is really enriching. We got to sample the different tea-infused chocolates made by him, and understood the different tastes as a result of different chocolates used even though the tea leaves used are the same.

There wasn't any dull moments...and my only regrets is not to get more people to go with me, so that we can all learn from the professionals and the experts! Let's wait for next year's WGS.