A Determined Young Man!!

Yesterday, I finished almost half a day in a small bakery kitchen of a young man i called `Along'. My daughter and him are friends during their schooling days. Since he had  delivered the order of the day he was quite free to entertain us. He rent the back portion of a shop and single handed did all his baking there. He just opened the kitchen a few month back and has two ovens, a big mixer, a freezer (its a special freezer) and quite a number of cooking n baking utensils.  He has once worked in a 5 star hotel here in KL, then whisked himself off to Dubai for two years, come back to Malaysia and enrolled himself in one of the culinary college and earned himself a diploma in pastry and baking. He wants to be not only experience but an educated chef. Good for him!!

one of the oven

the mixer

Beater, whisk, dough hook

freezer

dough with red bean filling

homemade buns ready to eat

His focus is on homemade buns i.e sausage  roll, red bean filling, kaya filling,coconut filling and a few more other buns. If he gets orders for cakes then it is a bonus. Then i bombarded him with questions on bread making.  i  took a lesson  in bread making a few years back from one of the bakery shop here in Shah Alam and found flaws that need to be improved. Whom better person to ask than him.  He showed me the dough he'd already prepared the night before in the freezer. I didn't  know u can do that. He said he usually prepare the dough beforehand so that the next day he can concentrate on baking and packing. He gave me a few tips on how to check the texture of the dough and when it is ready for baking. I am lucky coz i got to watch him  prepare chocolate ganache (rich, dark chocolate topping).

Next year, he'll be off to Switzerland to work and and also to pursue  his `Degree in Pastry and Baking' for 6 years. I wish him all the best and success in all his undertaking, insyaallah.  He may be skinny young man but his heart is big full of determination and the word `give up' is not in his vocabulary.