Baking Degree at Edmonds Community College

Edmonds Community College's Culinary Arts program adds a two-year Associate of Technical Arts Baking Degree this fall with an emphasis on specialty baking — a progression of decorating skills and bakery management. Examples of specialty baking could include preparing chocolate, sugar art, artisan breads, wedding cakes, and boutique pastries, and creating a line of products for a bake shop or dessert menu.

The degree prepares students for entry-level work as bakers for hotels and restaurants as well as for catering businesses, resorts, independent bakeries and pastry shops, wholesale and retail markets, and high volume bakeries such as the bake shops in major grocery stores.

The degree program builds on the college's one-year Baking Certificate, which began in fall 2008 following the remodel of the college's commercial cooking kitchen, cafeteria, and opening of a baking kitchen in Brier Hall. The Edmonds Community College Foundation raised funds — including a donation from The Chaîne des Rôtisseurs international gastronomic society — to equip the kitchens and restaurant with commercial quality and capacity ovens, freezers, mixers, and ranges.

Students in the baking program learn industry standards for professional baking through hands on bakeshop operations. Classes include Principles of Cooking, Baking Theory, Procurement, Restaurant Operations, Food Service Nutrition, Food Service Sanitation, Sustainable Food Service, and Introduction to Hospitality Beverages.

Pastry chef Betsy Buford leads the baking program. She previously worked as a corporate baker in food services for a local biotechnology company and has been a pastry chef at fine Seattle restaurants, including Falling Waters, Ray's Boathouse, and Campagne as well as at Sun Mountain Lodge in Winthrop.

For more information about the baking program or culinary arts classes at Edmonds Community College, call 425.640.1473 or go to www.edcc.edu/clart.

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Education

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• culinary
• arts
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