Cross cultural cake baking

Cross cultural cake baking

An enterprising UCOL graduate has found a recipe for success by blending her native Thai and adopted New Zealand cultures in a cake mixing bowl.

Amornrat Tangkittiphattharaporn, a graduate of UCOL’s Hospitality, Baking and Pastry and Professional Cookery programmes, has now established her own bakery business, Dailylicious, operating from her sister’s Palmerston North restaurant Chada Thai.

Amornrat offers two distinctive cake styles for her Asian and New Zealand customers. “My Asian clients tend to prefer the lighter consistency Thai style cake,” she says. “But Kiwi customers seem to like denser, moister cakes.”

Amornrat was destined to make a career in the food industry. Her parents own a noodle shop back in Thailand, “I grew up with noodles, but my real love is baking,” she confesses.

The 27 year old recently returned to Thailand to participate in a one week short course on cake decorating at the UFM Baking and Cooking School. It was there she perfected the art of crafting flowers from butter cream, a skill that she now uses to adorn her client’s custom made cakes.

She thoroughly enjoyed her culinary studies at UCOL and was particularly impressed with the student kitchen facilities. “It was great having an individual workspace and easy access to cooking equipment and appliances.”

At UCOL Amornrat was also called on to demonstrate some of her Thai cooking techniques to her fellow students when they were studying Asian cooking. “I was happy to share my culture with my classmates.”

ENDS

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