Talented and full of finesse is baker Tiago de Abreu of The King’s College and Preparatory School in Bryanston.
Passionate about what he does, Tiago said his hobby started from a very young age.
“I started baking when I was about five years old,” he said. “I used to bake with my gran and of course she is a great baker. We used to visit her quite often and I’d always help her in the kitchen till late at night. One of my favourite memories is licking the bowl when we were done.”
He added that baking gave him a satisfying feeling and that’s why he loved it so much.
“Everyone always asks me why I love it so much, the other day I was baking a cake and it took me 17 hours to bake. All my friends said to me ‘you must be tired after baking that cake’ and I said to them I could go another 17 hours if I wanted to,” he joked
Beautiful and bright Tiago said the cake was a desert theme with fondant cacti and edible sand and explained the process.
“What I did was take Eet-Sum-Mor biscuits and I crushed them up and used them to create sand. I also used some marshmallow fondant that I had made and then made cactuses from them. I mostly like to make cakes because it allows for much more creativity.”
With cakes being his speciality, Tiago has a few tricks up his sleeve. Last year he made a wonderful gluten-free cake for one of his teachers, Robyn Oliveira.
“My teacher has a gluten allergy and for about three years she hadn’t eaten cake. I did promise to bake her a cake for her birthday so what I did was I took a nice recipe that I got from one of my books and instead of using normal wheat flour I just used gluten-free flour. She was so surprised and happy and that made me happy.”
With red velvet being his favourite and signature flavour, Tiago has big plans of turning his hobby into a career. With the intention to go to culinary school in the future, he added that he also loved being at King’s.
“There are a lot of things that I like about the school, the people are very kind, friendly and motivating.”
Related article:
https://www.citizen.co.za/sandton-chronicle/250705/beautifully-talented/
