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 hostess – 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.

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.

Program Entry Information

The program typically starts in Fall Quarter on a space available basis

Program Start

• Culinary Arts & Pastry Arts Classes: A grade of C- will be the minimum passing grade for any Culinary and Pastry class.

Testing Requirements

These requirements are for the AAS degree and are lower than those for the AAS-T degree. Please see the AAS-T Entry Page for AAS-T requirements.

• ACCUPLACER Arithmetic score  of 38 or MATH 090 or ABE 050 with a C or better.
• ACCUPLACER Reading Comprehension score of 71 or RDG 085 with a C or better.
• ACCUPLACER Sentence Skills score of 71 or ENGL 092 with a C or better.

Degree and Certificate Requirements

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

Programs

• Culinary Arts, AAS

• Culinary Arts, AAS-T

• Culinary Arts Certificate
• Pastry Arts Certificate

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