Hunter Valley Chocolate Festival 2012

July saw over 10,000 people attend the Hunter Valley Gardens Chocolate Festival in regional New South Wales with “Winter Wonderland” setting the theme for the highly anticipated Callebaut Showpiece Competition.

This year 22 entries were provided from around Australia with respected industry leaders Including TPA Members Jian Yao, Justin Yu and Dean Gibson on the judging panel.

Also during the weekend Team Pastry Australia worked for the first time with Team Bakery Australia in an open air live bakery which operated throughout the event.

Says Dean, “We used the event as a platform to do demonstrations with Adriano Zumbo (also a past TPA competitor), Drew Maddison a Corporate Pastry Chef from F Mayer, team members from Team Pastry Australia, Dean Tilden of Hunter TAFE and Brett Noy (TBA, Southern Cross baking Group) who rolled, proofed and baked 1200 chocolate croissants.”

Brett Noy added, “Using French flour, French butter, Belgian chocolate sticks and Aussie expertise we couldn’t go wrong. If you look around at the talent we had on stage and at the competition site it was probably the biggest gathering of professional pastry chefs and bakers in Australia.”

The Hunter Valley chocolate festival is now the main event for the Australian teams to work together in a fundraising weekend to help both teams compete against the world. Brett who is currently coaching the Australian baking team will compete in Munich August 2012 and Team Pastry Australia will compete in Lyon in January 2013.