After long discussions with the management at Lotus Children's Centre to develop this
programme, and thanks to fantastic support from the Hospital Training Association of Brisbane, CHEF helped co-ordinate a new young adults' training programme at Lotus. HTA kindly sent Mr Paul Wilderbeek, a senior lecturer from the HTA College to conduct the first part of a three-part training programme in commercial baking. CHEF purchased a large commercial oven and other necessary equipment for the programme and co-ordinated the visit in Ulaan Bataar in 2011.
In just two weeks, the course covered the making of
basic white dough
sweet bun dough
buckwheat bread
wholemeal bread
vegetable bread
cheese and dried tomato bread
hot cross buns
pizza
focaccia
Turkish bread
hamburger buns
croissants
The Lotus Baking Training Programme provided by Paul Wilderbeek was a great hit with the staff and kids. Needless to say, reports were that no baked goods made it out of the classroom at the end of each day!
Within a week of the completion of the first part of the Baking Programme, The Lotus Children's Centre had a large number of orders from the Ulaan Bataar ex-pat community for Easter hot-cross buns! They were happy to fulfill the orders and earn money for the centre. Since then, Lotus has been making fresh wholemeal bread for the children each week, which adds diversity to their diet.