Pastry Arts Management Students Receive Significant Amount of Practical Experience

Aside from retail bakeries, supermarkets, department stores, hotels, resorts, camps and more all hire bakers with the ability to produce advanced commercial quantities of breads, rolls, sweet dough, savoury and sweet pastry, Danish and puff pastry, cookies, cakes and desserts. If these professionals also have knowledge of materials purchasing and storage, product cost control and marketing, hiring and managing personnel, they are at a distinct advantage.

Centennial College's Baking – Pastry Arts Management program balances the practical skills of bakers with the business savvy they need to stand apart from the competition. This learning occurs within the Culinary Arts Centre, which boasts all of the latest equipment that in turn helps students to make a smooth transition into the workforce.

Applicants are required to have completed an Ontario Secondary School Diploma (OSSD) or equivalent, or have mature student status (19 years or older) and English Grade 12 C or U, or equivalent (minimum grade required) or take the Centennial College English Skills Assessment for Admission.

Once they are accepted, students attend a range of courses that include:

Baking and Pastry Arts Theory: Used in this course are study sessions that review major baking ingredients, their industry applications, trade terminology as well as baking production principles and methods.

Mathematics for Bakers: Mathematics is an essential part of the baker's job. As such, students learn how to convert formulas from imperial to metric, calculate baking percentages, determine flour factor, and prepare formulae for practical applications.

Quantity Bakery Production: Large scale baking is quite common in bakeries so students learn the basic principles of baking and develop the skills necessary for success in such a baking environment. The course highlights technique, terminology, organization, professionalism, safe handling and storage of products.

Baking and Pastry Arts Practical (3 Levels): The first of these three courses gives students a base with basic production principles and gains confidence in weighing ingredients, mixing doughs and preparing batters, fillings and icings. Students prepare, bake and finish specific sweet and savoury doughs, quick breads, cookies, pastries, custards, pies and laminated doughs. The second course, presented during the second semester, moves onto re-enforcing techniques in selecting, weighing, and mixing ingredients. Students prepare, bake and finish foam cakes, advanced pastries, petite fours, special occasion cakes, creams, custards, advanced sweet and savoury doughs and choux paste desserts. The final of the three courses, meanwhile, is an advanced version of the second course.

To round out this baking program, students experience a field placement during the final semester. This is students' opportunity to work in commercial kitchens applying what they have learned in their courses, learning from seasoned professionals and making industry connections.

Graduates of the one year Baking - Commercial Bakeries program may directly enter semester three of this program and earn a diploma in one additional year.