Meet Maddie, one of our Commercial Cookery students!
Thursday, 5 September 2024
Meet Maddie, a passionate young chef-in-training, currently completing her Certificate III in Commercial Cookery (SIT30821) at Wodonga TAFE. With a love for cooking that began in childhood, Maddie’s culinary journey is as inspiring as it is flavourful.
Maddie’s journey into the culinary arts started when she was just seven or eight years old. Given free rein in the kitchen, she was encouraged to experiment and create. This early freedom allowed her to develop a deep interest in flavours, ingredients, and food preparation. Being homeschooled provided Maddie with the unique opportunity to immerse herself in cooking. Desserts and sweets quickly became her specialty, with cakes, ice cream, and panna cotta being some of her favourite creations. By the age of twelve, she had even started her own sourdough business, selling sourdough bread, cakes, and other baked goods. The COVID-19 pandemic gave Maddie additional time to perfect her craft, allowing her to explore new techniques like cheese-making.
What sets Maddison apart is her balanced approach to cooking—she enjoys the structure of following recipes and precise measurements, but she also thrives on creativity, often throwing together ingredients to see what new and exciting dishes she can create.
Maddie attends Wodonga TAFE one day a week as part of her apprenticeship, spending the other four days working at Delatite Winery in Mansfield as a third-year apprentice. Her time on campus varies; practical days involve donning her uniform, gathering ingredients, creating workflow plans, and preparing dishes. After tasting and discussing their work, students face the inevitable clean-up—a task Maddie admits is her least favourite part of the process. On theory days, Maddie and her classmates delve into various units, covering everything from stocks, soups, and sauces to eggs, vegetables, and her personal favourite, desserts.
For Maddie, the most rewarding aspect of cooking is the creativity it allows. She loves altering and inventing recipes, playing with the endless possibilities of flavours, and experiencing the joy of seeing people enjoy the dishes she creates.
Her talent and dedication have already earned her accolades in the competitive culinary scene. In her first year as an apprentice, Maddie competed in the AusTAFE cooking competition in Bendigo, where she prepared a French omelette as an entrée and a pork dish paired with an orange and beetroot salad and a Cointreau sauce as the main course. More recently, she competed in Geelong, where she impressed judges with her French omelette, steak with fig jus, and a lactose-free kaffir lime creamed rice with chocolate soils. Maddie found the competition to be a fun and rewarding experience, enjoying not only the creation and execution of her dishes but also seeing what other competitors brought to the table.
Outside of her culinary pursuits, Maddie enjoys reading, dancing, bush walking, and crocheting. These activities provide her with a well-rounded lifestyle that balances her intense focus on cooking.
Looking to the future, Maddie plans to continue working with her current employer and dreams of traveling around Europe to further expand her culinary horizons. Eventually, she hopes to buy a house and, as a long-term goal, run a small, quirky café. Maddie is also considering returning to Wodonga TAFE to complete a patisserie course, further refining her already impressive skills.