Culinary Arts and Pastry Arts

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Overview

If you love cooking, have a passion for food and have always dreamed of being a chef, then Bellingham Technical College’s Culinary Arts associate degree program is for you. BTC’s programs and certificates in Culinary Arts and Pastry Arts are ideal for students with cooking skills and an interest in the fast-growing food service industry. You’ll receive training from an award-winning faculty in state-of-the-art kitchens and get the skills and experience you’ll need to get top jobs in the fast-paced culinary field. Hone your culinary arts skills and gain training in every aspect of food service – from chef to restaurant manager to front-of-the-house service – at BTC’s Café Culinaire, where students run the International Buffet in winter quarter and a full-service a la carte restaurant in spring. To expand on your cooking skills, you can also take classes for your pastry arts certificate and get training for the best pastry chef jobs.

Program Outcomes

After successfully completing the Culinary Arts program, students will be able to:

• Conform and comply with health standards based on US Food and Drug Administration, Washington State, and local health department sanitation and hygiene codes and laws.
• Apply fundamentals and advanced skills in sustainable design and purchasing, butchery, Garde Manger, classical sauce, soups and stocks, farinaceous foods, classical cookery techniques in international cuisine, American regional cuisines, define product specifications, and food and beverage service.
• Plan, prepare, and cook foods a la carte and buffet style consistently in a visually appealing manner while maintaining taste, nutritive value, flavor, and texture in classical and contemporary cooking methods.
• Correctly prepare a variety of classical breads, artisan breads, classical pastry items, and desserts with the ability to correctly evaluate finished products for proper texture, color, palatability, shape, and doneness.
• Plan, develop and analyze the dining room layout, facility design, menu design, cost analysis, marketing plan, and projected profit and loss statements.
• Describe the fundamental nutrients in the human diet, identify a variety of contemporary dietary needs and demonstrate the ability to create and cook modified menus to meet those needs.

After successfully completing the Pastry Arts program, students will be able to:

• Conform and comply with health standards based on US Food & Drug Administration, Washington State, and local health department sanitation and hygiene codes and laws.
• Demonstrate proficiency in the use of baking and pastry industry- specific equipment.
• Apply basic cuisine foundational skills.
• Demonstrate basic measuring, conversion, food costing, and yield management practices.
• Analyze the functions of ingredients used in producing baked goods and pastries.
• Produce a variety of classical and contemporary breads, pastry items, and desserts, with the ability to correctly evaluate finished products for texture, color, palatability, shape and doneness.
• Demonstrate advanced skills with sour dough breads and bread art, chocolate and sugar art, and specialty cakes.
• Utilize fundamental techniques creatively to modify standard recipes and formulate new recipes.

Placement Requirements

Admissions application and assessment testing in Reading, Math, and Sentence Skills are required. Your score on the test and/or your previous transcripts will determine where you begin your course sequence. Contact Admissions at 360.752.8345 or at admissions@btc.edu for assistance with academic planning.

AAS Requirements:

ACCUPLACER Classic Arithmetic (38) or higher OR ACCUPLACER NextGen Arithmetic (230) or higher OR completion of ABE 050 with a C or higher.

ACCUPLACER Classic Reading (71) or higher OR ACCUPLACER NextGen Reading (247) or higher OR RDG 085 with a C or higher.

ACCUPLACER Classic Sentence Skills (71) or higher OR ACCUPLACER NextGen Writing (245) or higher OR ENGL 092 with a C or higher.

AAS-T Requirements:

ACCUPLACER Classic Reading (85) or higher OR ACCUPLACER NextGen Reading (256) or higher OR AENGL 100 with a C or higher.

ACCUPLACER Classic Sentence Skills (86) or higher OR ACCUPLACER NextGen Writing (255) or higher OR ENGL 092 with a B or higher OR AENGL 100 with a C or higher.

ACCUPLACER Classic College Level Math (75) OR ACCUPLACER NextGen Advanced Algebra & Functions (240) or higher OR MATH 099 with a C or higher.

Degree and Certificate Requirements

Culinary Arts AAS Degree and Pastry Certificate completion requires a cumulative GPA of 2.0 or higher and minimum grade of C-/1.7 for culinary and pastry courses. AAS-T Degree requires a cumulative GPA of 2.0 or higher and minimum grade of C-/1.7 for culinary and pastry courses and minimum grade of C/2.0 for all General Education courses.

Programs

• Culinary Arts, AAS

• Culinary Arts, AAS-T

• Culinary Arts Certificate
• Pastry Arts Certificate

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