At TAFE there’s no ordinary hot cross bun Coffs Coast by News Of The Area - Modern Media - April 10, 2023 TAFE NSW baking teacher Paul Miranda shows how the apprentices worked out their top five choices of hot cross buns to make. IT WAS mise en place in motion at the TAFE NSW Coffs Campus commercial kitchen where the Certificate III baking apprentices were producing batches of various varieties of hot cross buns on Tuesday 28 March. For the uninitiated, mise en place is the preparation of dishes and ingredients before the beginning of service. Advertise with News of The Area today. It’s worth it for your business. Message us. Phone us – (02) 4981 8882. Email us – media@newsofthearea.com.au A first principle of mise en place is planning, and TAFE Baking Teacher Paul Miranda is a stickler for making a plan. “Preparation began early this morning deciding which varieties of buns to make,” Paul told News Of The Area. “We listed all our ingredients on the board and put our heads together to decide what to make.” With both innovation and tradition featuring in their final choice, the students chose five flavours: white chocolate, cranberries and macadamias; garlic butter and herbs; passionfruit, pineapple and buttercream; conventional fruited and Devonshire tea buns. There’s a fundamental process in baking that the students are learning from Paul: weigh, mix, rest, scale, mould (shape), prove, bake, glaze and decorate. By mid-morning, with the delicious smells permeating TAFE’s Hospitality and Tourism Block 1, a further process step was on everyone’s minds – eat. Working like a multi-set alarm, Paul has all the process times in his head as the apprentices are whipping up fillings, proving mixtures, putting trays in ovens and importantly getting things out of the oven at the right time for a perfectly baked bun. “It’s a trade skill,” said Paul. “We cannot rely on timers, although we do use them, but to be professional you need to know.” Another trade skill he trains is also a mise en place discipline – clean as you go. And on Paul’s territory it’s spick and span despite having a combination of students, flour, fresh cream, melted butter and a lot of kitchen hardware around. “It has to be spotless,” said Paul. The students baking up the huge batch of buns were from Woolworths Woolgoolga, Toormina and Park Beach Plaza with two young men from Bakers Delight in Port Macquarie. Ezra Sury, who works at Woolworths Toormina, had worked in kitchens before he “found baking”, which he now rates as “a good life skill, a trade as old as time.” Sue Mowle, a baking apprentice working at Woolworths Park Beach Plaza was formerly a cook, but found baking to be more creative. “You can express yourself with baking, especially when it comes to cake decorating,” she told NOTA. With over 140 million hot cross buns sold by major retailers each year across Australia, the Easter treat is a staple skill for baking apprentices. Today they come in all tastes and toppings, but there’s one thing for sure. “There’s no ordinary hot cross bun, they are all extraordinary,” said Paul Miranda. By Andrea FERRARI Ryan Dawes from Bakers Delight Port Macquarie with teacher Paul Miranda testing how the dough has proved, and Ezra Sury from Woolworths Toormina. Ezra Sury checking the hot cross buns that will be glazed with garlic and herb butter. Sue Mowle, a baking apprentice who works at Park Beach Plaza Woolworths, piping in the pineapple and buttercream filling. Head Teacher of Tourism and Hospitality, Phil Caldicott patiently waiting for some cooled hot cross buns to take to his hungry students who have smelled the delicious aroma.
