Pixie Dust and Pastries: Working Party of the Senses

One of the highlights of this program was that I got the opportunity to work with my sous chef for her Party of the Senses. The party is held on select nights during the festival and the cheapest ticket is $145 with the more expensive seats quickly selling out well in advance. I would never afford to be able to get in as a guest so to experience it as a Cast Member was really cool!

We did some prep work in our home kitchen before the party started, just getting the materials and stuff together. We had to make sure our jackets and stuff were clean and then we headed to the PEO kitchen to start getting everything together!

Most of the work for the party is done backstage and it was really cool to see how it was put together. If you were to go past the doors from party to backstage you would see a really long hallway with small fold up tables and refrigerators lining either side. Each chef and their team were assigned a table where you could plate your dishes. For example, my chef's dessert was plated out back and we would put the finished plates on trays and take them out to the party. My chef's dessert was a Banana Cake with Coconut Mousse with Milk Chocolate Caramel Ganache and a Cojit Sauce. It was DELICIOUS

Backstage we would put the chocolate and macaroon on top of the cake and we sauced on stage

Guests had it as the best dessert of the night!

We got to go into the room early so we could see the presentation of the chefs. Seeing all the decorations and the atmosphere was really cool! and it hadn't even started!

Looks like a chef party!

My sous chef is the first girl from the right

Chef Keegan Freaking Gerhard of Food Network Challenge was there! Majorly fangirled

Chefs of the night

Don't break anything!

Party of the Senses 2013

My sous-chef had her own table for the night. She would stand outside of it to tell the guests about it and we would stand behind it saucing the dishes and making sure the table was full. She also made a chocolate centerpiece for it. It was cool to go from seeing my chef with paper templates trying to build it to seeing the finished piece on display!

Very official!

My chef's chocolate showpiece

Colored sugar

The table, pre desserts of course!

Me and my sous-chef

The whole gang!

I had a really great time working the party. I was missing plating desserts since that was one of my shifts at the Polynesian so it was a nice change. This was in the middle of the festival so it was nice to work with a mousse that wasn't pistachio or top something that wasn't hazelnut cheesecake. We rotated between plating out back and saucing up front and while I was up front I go to see some of the performers from La Nouba, the specially made Cirque Du Solei show in Downtown Disney. The whole atmosphere was just really awesome. Seeing guests come up to our table to take a dessert and then coming back a few minutes later to tell my chef how delicious it was was really neat.

When the party was nearing an end, we were allowed to take our nametags off and eat around the party. I'm a really picky eater so I wasn't loading up plates of stuff (except for the Kerrygold cheese, give it here!) but I definitely hit up all the desserts! What really was the kicker, I got to meet Chef Keegan Gerhard! He was the MC for Food Network Challenge back in the day. When I first started getting into baking, I would watch Food Network as soon as I came home from school and pretty much go all night. FNC was one of my favorites so to see someone go from my tv screen to right in front of me was really cool! He was busy of course but I mentioned to him how I had been a fan of his for a while and that it was a pleasure to finally meet him. He was so nice and humble and really appreciated me being a fan and noted that I was meeting him as a baker for Epcot which was pretty cool! He was a really great guy to meet, and his dessert was delicious!