Is there a such thing as graduate school for Pastry? Let me know. Until I find out about this illustrious institution (that I'm pretty darn sure does not exist) I'm on my own to forage around for classes to learn more about this chosen field. I've made phone calls to community colleges, other baking schools, and most recently... a 2-car-garage-sized cake decorating supply store in Berkeley asking the same thing: "Do you offer classes? For people who have already gone to pastry school and become chefs?" Usually the answer is something about how I should be off making money baking instead of spending more to re-learn things I already know with novice students. Alas, I kept calling and finally enrolled in "American Cake Decorating" at afore-mentioned tiny cake decorating supply store. It's a 4-week course meeting one night a week in a make-shift kitchen resembling that of a small house-boat galley kitchen. Each week we bring a frosted cake and the "Sugar Art Guru" instructs us in how to make egg-yolk-yellow sunflowers, pastel pink rose buds, moss-green vines, and strangely-enough -- fuscia famingos -- all out of a powdered sugar / crisco special she calls frosting. If this is American cake decorating, please, someone whisk me away to France.
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Continuing My Education
Is there a such thing as graduate school for Pastry? Let me know. Until I find out about this illustrious institution (that I'm pretty darn sure does not exist) I'm on my own to forage around for classes to learn more about this chosen field. I've made phone calls to community colleges, other baking schools, and most recently... a 2-car-garage-sized cake decorating supply store in Berkeley asking the same thing: "Do you offer classes? For people who have already gone to pastry school and become chefs?" Usually the answer is something about how I should be off making money baking instead of spending more to re-learn things I already know with novice students. Alas, I kept calling and finally enrolled in "American Cake Decorating" at afore-mentioned tiny cake decorating supply store. It's a 4-week course meeting one night a week in a make-shift kitchen resembling that of a small house-boat galley kitchen. Each week we bring a frosted cake and the "Sugar Art Guru" instructs us in how to make egg-yolk-yellow sunflowers, pastel pink rose buds, moss-green vines, and strangely-enough -- fuscia famingos -- all out of a powdered sugar / crisco special she calls frosting. If this is American cake decorating, please, someone whisk me away to France.
