Daniel Moreira
Managing editor
For the first time this semester, pastry students were greeted by the long line of customers waiting for the chance to try their creations.
Damian Fraase, pastry chef instructor, headed the project for the semester.
“This menu, I worked on through Christmas break,” Fraase said. “They are assigned three items. I generally try to assign two things that are comparatively simple, and one item that requires a little bit more attention.
According to Fraase, this semester’s tropical theme is inspired by the winter pastry history, and given the long line for the bake sale, Fraase and his students will not have to change their menu for next week’s sale.
“Classically speaking, pastry chefs would move to tropical flavors at this time of the year because everything local was all out of season, so these flavors were the only ones that were really available,” Fraase said.
The team who bakes and takes care of the sale is composed of 12 students. They begin working on the Thursday prior to the sale, up into the hours before 3 p.m., when the bake sale begins. The profits from the bake sale go back to the program.
“The money that we make helps pay for our ingredients,” Fraase said. “We are responsible for paying for the [ingredients] that we used, and at the end of the year, we buy new equipment, we buy new software or whatever else we feel we need for the bake shop.”
Each student is assigned a style of pastry/baking at the beginning of the semester. Fraase’s objective with the program is to assure that all students adapt and improve their pastry/baking skills every week.
Fraase said, “Everybody who worked today on their projects will work again next week, fix anything that needs to be fixed, then they rotate into a new station.”