Owens baking & pastry class whips up tiered cakes

Baking & pastry III class working hard on three tiered cakes.

  
   The smell of fondant and gum paste filled the room in Heritage Hall as the baking and pastry III class was in full swing. 
   The seven week class is one of three baking and pastry classes offered to Owens students working to receive their baking and pastry certificate.  Students must take the first two classes before taking the last and final class.  Baking and pastry I is learning the techniques and basics for cakes.  The second class builds on what they had learned the previous seven weeks.  Baking and pastry III is the cream of the crop.  It builds on previous baking techniques and gives the students more advanced techniques in cake decoration, chocolates, truffles, sculptures, blown sugar and pastillage.


A Pastillage sculpture stands in the window
located in Founders Hall in the baking kitchen.

   Assistant Chef Amy Morford said, "Pastillage are the big show pieces that you see that is technically edible."  Pastillage is made from powdered sugar and gelatin.  They usually take two days to make their pastillage sculptures.
   Chef Kelly Wolf teaches the baking and pastry classes. "This is the first class that has had more than 4 students in it so we needed an assistant chef.  We are happy about that"
   "I did not know that Owens even had this program and I thought that was perfect.  I was kind of self taught and I have never done sculpting because it was one of those things that you should learn before you dip your hand in it." Student Beth Tolles said.
   Students were working on assembling three tiered cakes in
teams of two.  They brainstormed what they wanted their cake to look like and drew a sketch of their ideas.  After they agreed on the sketch it was onto making the decorations out of gum paste and fondant.  They used Styrofoam dummy cakes because they are faster and they had learned the baking process in the baking and pastry classes prior.  They covered each tier with fondant and then stacked the cakes.  Decorating the tiers was the final touch.  They were graded on level of difficulty, challenge and other components.  
   Meghan Slates, a student in the class said, "the reason why I went into baking as a specialty, is because I do not think that I can handle the stress in a kitchen.  I have had a pretty decent career in retail and I want to open my own bakery that way I can have that control with making my own product because I know how retail works."
   Chef Wolf said, "savory chefs are always asked their specialty, but pastry chef are expected to know everything."  Pastry is a very broad term and sometimes people think that pastry chefs know how to do everything when it comes to baking.  Most pastry chefs have a certain expertise that they stick with.  Some only work on cakes while others only make chocolates.
   Students can receive there baking and pastry certificate in only three semester. 

Fondant leaves being painted by multiple colors to make them look like fall.

Chef Kelly Wolfe (right) helping her student Mary Sankovich roll fondant onto a dummy cake.

Jeff Davidson works on fondant leaves for his cake.  After cutting out the leaves Jeff adds color.

Tina Osment (left) and her partner Mary Sankovich works on assembling their three tiered cake.

Alicia Chamberlain was works on her Halloween cake by herself do to her partner being out sick.

Apricot glaze is used as a glue to keep the fondant in place on the cakes.