First Cohort of Future Pastry Arts Pros Reflect on Experience

January saw Boston University launch its new on-campus Professional Pastry Arts Program, which in just 14 weeks teaches students all they need to know to become a master baker through a lesson plan suited to either launch a career or deepen a personal passion.

The inaugural cohort of budding pastry chefs has just put the final icing on the cake of their educational experience, concluding a semester in which they received instruction from the likes of Anne Wolf, a chocolatier who taught them the ins-and-outs of the craft, Bill Yoses, who was the White House’s executive pastry chef from 2007 to 2014, Jacques Pépin, who helped found BU’s Culinary Arts program, and Janine Sciarappa, the program’s lead pastry instructor and herself a graduate of the Culinary Arts program.

The trailblazing students were recently featured in a BU Today story marking their involvement in the unique new offering from BU’s Food & Wine Programs, which taught them everything from basic baking principles to classic and modern pastry and confectionary techniques, even introducing them to a wide variety of types of pastries from all over the world.

For Louise Allen, one of this year’s newly minted Pastry Arts Professionals, it was the Pastry Arts Online course that helped guide her to Boston University. A Florida resident, Allen enjoyed the program’s online courses so thoroughly that she even temporarily moved to Boston to be a part of the on-campus program. She’s glad she made the choice—and her family stands to be the biggest beneficiary.

“Family holidays are about to get an upgrade,” Allen told BU Today.

Professional Pastry Arts classes are held Tuesdays through Thursdays, from 9:30 am to 6 pm, at BU’s state-of-the-art industrial demonstration kitchen, the Groce Pépin Innovation Culinary Laboratory, where students develop the professional strengths and skills they need to immediately commence a career in food and baking—whether by joining a restaurant or professional bake shop or by launching their own businesses.

Here, students develop the professional strengths and skills they need to immediately commence a career in food and baking, whether by joining a restaurant or professional bake shop, or by launching their own businesses.

They may also combine the program with complementary Food Studies courses, like food writing, recipe testing, food media, and more, to personalize their studies. And thanks to a vast multimedia library of video lectures, slide decks, and recorded demonstrations, students gain access to over 300 hours of pastry instruction.

The Professional Pastry Arts Program’s next session begin January 18, 2024. Download the application here.