Baking Industry Training Centre – Part 2

How time flies! I’ve already completed my cake module and I’m on to the bread making module of my baking course. Now that I am able to look back at the entire cake baking module, I find it incredulous that I am now able to bake cakes the likes of what you see at BreadTalk and Benganwan Solo. Serious!

Do these cakes not look at home in a cake shop?

Quite a number of the cakes that were taught, I thought were a bit outdated. For example, do you know what a Bavarian Cake is? I don’t think I’ve ever even heard of it, let alone seen it at any of our bakeries. It’s more than a hundred years old! Also, Birthday Cakes with lots of piped cream and cream rosettes are pretty old fashioned if you ask me. Baking Industry Training Centre (BITC) teaches lots of recipes for cakes that you would still be able to find at your local bakery, but the more modern cakes would be those that you find at say Canele for example. Still, there’s no denying that I’ve obtained the skills and the confidence to go create whatever I desire, and that I think is the most important thing.

This is a Bavarian Cake. So are the ones in the picture above.

Fortunately, I managed to learn how to make my most favourite cake of all time in the class. The Sacher Torte! I have been lusting after this cake for the longest time, ever since I learnt of its existence in German class a number of years ago. I don’t think you can find the Sacher Torte in Singapore! One of my favourite chefs taught us how to do it and speaking of him, I have to label him a Cake Whiz. He slices cakes at the speed of lightning, it’s just amazing to even watch it. Literally everyone in the class was speechless just watching him churn out those slices like a human cake slicing machine. And I’m not talking about slicing a cake vertically mind you, I’m talking about horizontal. It may sound easy but just you try and see. It’s too bad we only had half a lesson with Mr Cake Whiz. Wish we could have more.

My beloved Sachertorte. It was heart breaking to have to give it all away as without preservatives, the cakes spoil within 3 days.

Another picture of the Sachertorte. I took it home so that I could take a picture in natural lighting. The metal table benches in class do not make for nice photos.

I was a nervous wreck during the practical exam on the last day! Couldn’t sleep until 4am, which obviously made things much worse! I don’t know why I got so nervous about the exam. It’s not like I think I would fail, cuz it takes quite some effort to fail! I suppose it’s the thought of finding out you mis-measured something and having to redo all over again. If you’ve taken Chemistry practical exams, you’d know the feeling. And I suppose I just want to score better than my 2 best pals in the class! HEH!

Look at the atrocious handwriting I produced for my exam cake! It’s an embarrassment! Why did the piping bag have to clog up only during the exam?! Cake on the right was another Bavarian I produced for the exam. While it looks pleasant, I feel that Maraschino cherries on cakes are so dated!

Anyway, I’m on to the Bread module now and today was the 3rd day of class. I just have one statement to make so far : BREAD IS BORING, CAKE IS SEXIER!

Ok lah, it’s early days yet and I’ll probably get more interested when we get down to doing the sweet breads and continental breads. But for the whole of this week, we are just making plain white bread, using different methods! Yesterday it was plain bread using a rapid dough system. Today it was plain bread using the bulk fermentation system. And tomorrow, it will be plain bread using the sponge and dough method! EEEEK! And for the entire day’s effort, I am rewarded with 3 lovely PLAIN LOAVES OF BREAD, that cost what, $6 if I were to buy Gardenia or Sunshine? At this moment, it’s a far cry from the delicious and pretty cakes I made each day. A day’s worth of effort would have gotten me at least one $30 cake!

The effort required is lesser than in cake class though, and the difficulty is lower. I find myself sitting around quite a bit and the chef even told my partner and I to slow down! A far cry from the rush rush rush of cake class. For a home baker, this week’s worth of lessons (and money spent on paying for these lessons!!) is pretty useless. One would never be able to have a roller machine in one’s house so assuming you don’t have spare $ to spend on frivolous lessons, what is the use of learning about it? As I mentioned in my previous post, Baking Industry Training Centre trains bakers for commercial kitchens, hence you just have to go through this part of the lesson if you want BITC’s cert!

All that being said, I don’t regret taking up the bread baking class as bread is a staple, and how can I say that I know how to bake, if I can’t even bake a simple loaf of bread?

Bread is SO NOT SEXY. Enuff said.

Read about my 1st few days at BITC Cake Class.

Baking Industry Training Centre Pte Ltd (BITC)
201 Keppel Road, Level 11 Annexe Block
Singapore 099419

Telephone:+65 6276 6337

Email:bakingskills@bitc.com.sg

Fax:+65 6276 6608

Operation Hours

Monday — Friday 8:30am — 5:30pm

Saturday 8:30am — 12:30pm

Closed on Sunday and Public Holidays