I’m on a full-time NVQ Level 2 in bakery course at Brooklands College, in Weybridge, Surrey. We make all sorts of products, such as white loaves, brown loaves, puff pastry, lemon cake, doughnuts, ginger cake, scones - anything really. My favourite is bread, because I find it easy and more fun to make. You don’t have to think too hard when you’re doing it and you tend to make a lot more bread than other products.

When I finish this year, I could go straight into work, but I’m thinking of doing a Level 3 NVQ, because I enjoy the course so much and because I have fun with my friends. I also have the option of taking an additional sugarcraft course, which involves icing and decorating cakes.

In the future, I hope to become an experienced baker and, one day, I may open my own shop.

There’s nothing else I’d rather do than be a baker. Baking bread would be perfect - but I’d have to get up very early in the mornings and work long days.

Early starts

The hardest part of college is getting up at 7.30am. We have to be in the bakery by 9.15am and we don’t finish baking until around 12.30pm. I don’t really find any of the products hard to make; if we get stuck at any point, there are a lot of people around to advise us and we all help each other out. I really enjoy making bakery products and love being around other people who enjoy the same thing. The lessons are not too strict, so we can have fun, both with each other and with the tutors. Our tutors - Jane Hatton and Sue Haskell - are really good. They are also very helpful and friendly.

We do practical work everyday, followed by a session of written work in which we fill in our folders, explaining what we have done and answering questionnaires, which test what we have learned. This is very useful and helps us to gain an NVQ at the end of the course.

original ambition

Originally, I wanted to be a chef and did a course in which I had one lesson of bakery. I really enjoyed it, so I decided to change to bakery, as I found it much more interesting. There always seemed to be a new challenge. I have always wanted to be in the food industry because I saw my mum cooking and wished I could do it myself.

Now, some-times, I show her how to bake things. I like cookery programmes and always

try to make sure that I see Gordon Ramsay’s shows. I think that anyone who wants to get into bakery should work hard and try their hardest, but have fun while they are doing it.

I have already recommended the baking industry to a couple of my friends. n