Feb. 22, 2023, GRAND RAPIDS, Mich. — Jenna Ackerman’s creation looked like a fancy egg on toast, but it was actually something much sweeter.
Ackerman is an advanced pastry student in Grand Rapids Community College’s Secchia Institute for Culinary Education. The class recently showed off its colorful array of treats in a pop-up sale in the Foodology Eatery and Café in the Wisner-Bottrall Applied Technology Center.
“This pastry buffet is a five-star level; it compares to any hotel or restaurant in the area,” Chef Wilfredo Barajas proudly said of his students’ work. “It might take someone 10 years to learn pastry, but these students learn and master 30-50 techniques in seven weeks.”
Through the Secchia Institute, GRCC students develop baking and pastry skills, and are mentored by instructors who have years of experience in the field and around the world.
Barajas led the seven-week baking and pastry program and prepared his students to create desserts for the pop-up sale, their final project.
“My students may come into this program knowing how to cook, but many of them start with no training or knowledge of pastry,” Barajas said. “When students come to me, I say ‘Let me control you for three to four weeks to build your foundation,’ and then after that they can expand and grow their skills.”
Having trained with master chefs and college-level pastry programs around the country, Barajas said his goal is to prepare his students to go into any kitchen around the world with a well-rounded pastry knowledge and training.
Barajas compared techniques for making pastry to tools in a tool box; if he can give his students all the right tools, he said, they will be well equipped to create desserts with tastes and textures.
More than 2,000 patisseries were prepared by students for the popup and were plated and displayed on a three table-long buffet.
Patrons could choose from chocolate marshmallows, jelly sweets, different flavors of macarons, tiny cream puffs and bonbons of every shape and color to fill their box.
“It was a lot of work,” Ackermann said. “Our class was separated into different teams and each team made a different flavor of macaron and bonbon. That’s how we learned about coloring chocolate.”
She explained how students used existing recipes and selected their own flavors and colors to create patisseries for the event.
“We learned a lot of new techniques, and it was a team effort to get it all done,” she said.
In addition to their team’s assigned recipes, some students worked on personal projects, like Ackerman’s egg and toast. She created a mango and panna cotta “egg” atop a slice of pound cake to replicate toast.
Even some of the decorations looked delicious. Weeks away from completing her final semester at GRCC, Kat De Vries completed two personal projects to put on display.
“I made a crescent moon and flowers out of pulled sugar and it took two days to make,” she said. “The vase took longer, probably two weeks, and everything is made of fondant and chocolate. Except the flowers on top are gum paste.”
De Vries said she had very little knowledge going into the project of the techniques she would use.
“Now I’ve learned that I can make something like this,” she said.
Previously a Kent Career Tech Center pastry student, De Vries plans to open an online bakery after completing her certification.
This story was reported by Alexis Stark of School News Network.