Erin excels with national culinary award
A TRANSITION Year student in the Presentation Secondary School in Wexford achieved national success by winning the senior category of the national Ceist Bake-off competition.
Erin Murphy, from Ballygortin, Wells, Gorey, won the national final in Athy in March.
The national lockdown in the interim meant the school was prevented from formally acknowledging Erin’s remarkable achievement.
However, speaking to this newspaper her TY coordinator and one of her Home Economic teachers, Jacqueline Hartnett, said everyone was really proud of what she did.
‘She won the school bake-off competition and made it through to the national final where she was up against students from schools from across the country,’ said Ms Hartnett.
The theme of the competition was based around caring communities and Erin decorated her cake with intricate details, using fondant icing, including an elderly man walking along the ‘path of life’s stones’.
She also depicted a young boy playing with a kite and a nun at prayer.
‘The had a signpost in the middle of the cake and it depicted different aspects of community including words like caring, kindness and togetherness,’ said Ms Hartnett.
The Presentation School came twice in the competition on two previous occasions and that made Erin’s success this time around all the better.
Ms Hartnett pointed out that Erin comes from a culinary background as her dad, Liam, is a baker with Stafford’s and her uncle, Wade Murphy, is a Michelin Bib winning chef with the 1826 restaurant in Adare.