Baking & Culinary Articles

A bipartisan group of state legislators, all present for President Davie Jane Gilmour's budget request to the Senate Appropriations Committee in February, got a follow-up look at Penn College during a trip to main campus on Tuesday. Touring a number of instructional labs with Sen. Gene Yaw (chairman of the college's board of directors), administrators, faculty and staff were Sen.

Students in several hospitality courses showed off final projects to visitors from six high schools, who visited campus April 26 for Hospitality Visit Day. During a session in the Klump Academic Center Auditorium, Amaris T. Smith, of Williamsport, and Nolan S.

University of Rome student Lorenzo Stefanelli (left) and his professor, Chef Felice Santodonato, demonstrate a recipe for risotto. Santodonato and Giacomo Berselli, president of Marco Polo Study Abroad, explain a cooking method during a demonstration and tasting for students. Students Jacob W. Parobek, of Seltzer (center), and Kobi A. Shannon, of Lewistown, observe Santodonato.

Chef Manuel Uribe, sous chef of Chicago’s Terzo Piano and a faculty member in the Jerome J. Drosos School of Culinary Arts at Triton College, headlined Penn College’s 2019 Visiting Chef Series, lending his knowledge and skill as he guided students in preparing a Mediterranean-themed dinner. He was joined by Rachel Erceg, lead pastry chef for Terzo Piano.

Pennsylvania College of Technology is set to provide a quicker pathway to a baking and pastry arts career through a new 12-month certificate in professional baking and a revision to its associate degree in baking and pastry arts that will make a degree obtainable in 16 months.

In the church’s kitchen, students form an assembly line to pack giveaway bags with toothpaste and toothbrushes.

Student managers for the event, Gray and Jordan, plate the dessert: key lime pie with coconut panna cotta. Students Jordan, Showers and Meszaros look over the main course before serving: an herb-and-garlic-crusted loin of beef with classic au jus lié and potato cake. Callahan prepares seared scallops. Shannon and Gray plate an intermezzo of tropical citrus sorbet.

Pennsylvania College of Technology will again be part of the hospitality team for the running of the historic Kentucky Derby on May 4. Twenty-eight students, 10 alumni and a faculty member are set to spend a week in Louisville, Kentucky, where they will join a legion of culinarians from Levy Restaurants, the food purveyor for Churchill Downs.

The empowering combination of applied technology education and financial support was celebrated Sunday afternoon, as Pennsylvania College of Technology hosted its second annual Scholarship Luncheon in the campus Field House. "I am overwhelmed by the collective energies in this room to transform tomorrow," President Davie Jane Gilmour said, addressing students, families and donors alike.

Penn College's baking and pastry arts program has added two new industry-standard ovens to its lab: a hearth oven with an integrated loader and a round, rotating-rack oven. Curriculum additions also give students new pathways for their baking careers.