Get Ready to Indulge Your Sweet Tooth at White Mountains Community College
Katharine Eneguess, President of White Mountains Community CollegeChocolate éclairs, fruit-filled puff pastries, bite-sized petit fours...we've all got our own favorite pastry, the taste of which sends us reeling back to our childhood, to a time when a trip to the local bakery was a reward for being good while mother did the weekly shopping. Back then the aroma of the baking goods seemed to hang in the air, a layer of fresh goodness just at child’s height, aimed right at our nose.
Cookies larger than our hands, delicate butterfly-shaped creations light as air, dense and dark chocolate cake, given a choice of only one treat, who could choose?
Baking and pastry arts have a rich history, one that goes back to at least the time of the Pharaohs in Egypt. So, as an adult, it is your duty to keep these arts alive, and continue to support the baking and pastry arts by indulging your sweet tooth.
We like to think we are holding up our side of the deal here at White Mountains Community College. Many of you already know about our Culinary Arts Program here at the college, and have been nice enough to sample the accomplishments of our students during community luncheons, meetings and seminars held at the college, but did you know we now offer an associate degree specifically for those who want to specialize in baking delightful creations?
Thanks to the hard work of Culinary Arts professors Kurt Hohmeister and Travis Giles, with a lot of help from Chef Steve James, former executive pastry chef at the Balsams, now owner/operator of Popovers on the Square in Portsmouth, the New Hampshire Culinary Institute at White Mountains Community College is offering a two-year Associate Science degree in Baking and Pastry Arts. The course will include everything from basic bread baking to the fine art of confections, with 250 hours of lab work a semester. This new degree is made possible, in part, by the expansion and renovation project here at the college in Berlin. This fall, with the opening of the brand new bakery facility, our space devoted to baking will double.
Students who earn this degree can look forward to careers in a wide range of settings, from product development professionals in large commercial bakeries to pastry chef positions in everything from cruise ships to the corner bakery. Graduates can expect to earn in the mid $30,000s a year, depending on location, size, and business volume of the employer. The opportunities for self-employment are endless.
Flour, butter, eggs...who would have thought, all those years ago in the deep reaches of our history, that those basic ingredients could be combined in so many different ways, across so many cultures, and, with just a few sweet additions, make such a variety of breads and pastries?
To learn more about our Baking and Pastry Arts and Culinary Arts programs call the Admissions Office at 752-1113. Or, check the programs out online at www.wmcc.edu.
Back to News List6/13/2008
© White Mountains Community College. 2020 Riverside Drive, Berlin, NH 03570. Tel: (800)445-4525 or (603)752-1113.