The 14th annual Hawaii Food and Wine Festival featured a long list of talented chefs and sommeliers, including Aulani Resort Pastry Chef Amanda Porcuna.
The New Orleans native presented the sole dessert at the festival’s “Spice Market” event in Ko Olina.
“I made a honey lavender and coconut mousse with a macadamia feuilletine salted crunch and then I used a coconut ganache to go with it and everybody loved it. They loved the presentation. I did a very elegant presentation because I was basing it on paying tribute to the Royal Family here and their heritage,” Porcuna said.
Porcuna comes from a long line of bakers in New Orleans who inspired her to become a chef. She has worked for the Walt Disney World Company for almost 14 years, starting her career in Florida at the Walt Disney World Resort and Spa.
Being able to merge storytelling and baking is one of the perks of working for Disney, she says, which is why she remains loyal to a company that allows her to explore her creative side and be an artist.
“I go in there and I emerge myself into their story or for the Hawaii Food and Wine, I learned about the history of the culture. So it shows me the different aspects they like and I pay tribute to that because you ultimately want to honor the culture. Here, we have a cultural advisor. So I worked with the cultural advisor to come up with a name, just to make sure we were honoring culture here,” Porcuna said.
Students from the Leeward Community College culinary school were able to learn from Porcuna the importance of plating and working at a fast paced level for events of such scale. Porcuna says she takes special care in every step of baking, especially preproduction of the concept and symbolism behind the dish.
“And the reason why I chose purple is because it’s the true meaning of the end of a meal. So everyone loved the backstory cause here at Disney we love creating stories and we actually sold out of all of our desserts. We made 1,000 for the event,” Porcuna said.
