Fresh Homegrown Ingredients
The Culinary Arts & Baking Associate Degree program embraces the farm-to-table philosophy, supporting the cultivation of fresh, local ingredients. To this end, students have the unique opportunities to produce fresh produce through HCC’s resident beehives and fresh produce in the HCC Community Garden.
HCC has two resident beehives to produce honey for use in the Culinary Arts & Baking program, thanks to a Sponsor-a-Hive grant from the Honeybee Conservancy/Anthophilous awarded in 2019. Once the honey is available, it will be stocked in the pantry in the culinary school, and provided to the HCC Food Pantry, which helps combat food insecurity for students.
Farm-to-Table
HCC provides a space where students, faculty, and staff can work and learn together to grow vegetables in a sustainable manner, providing fresh and healthy vegetables to individuals in need. The vegetables grown are used in the Culinary Arts & Baking Associate Degree program, and also distributed to the HCC Food Pantry, Howard County Food Bank.
Passport to Pastries Study Abroad Program
Starting in summer of 2020, a group of culinary students will study baking and pastries where many of the world’s best pastry chefs began – France – in the new Passport to Pastries program. Students will meet on the HCC campus three times a week for three weeks, and then travel.
In France, the students will participate in a five-day intensive French baking course at Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Pâtisserie with some of the country’s best pastry chefs in the town of Yssingeaux. They’ll visit sites like La Cité du Chocolate Valrhona and spend a day in medieval Le Puy-en-Velay to explore pastry and chocolate shops. The group will also visit Paris to tour patisseries, boulangeries, and chocolatiers. By the end of the trip, students will be able to explain how history and culture has affected modern desserts.
Students will receive a certificate from Ecole Nationale Supérieure de Pâtisserie once they complete the course. The program is a great opportunity for pastry students to enhance their knowledge of the industry, compare and contrast the industry in France and the United States, and experience France as a pastry chef.
For more information or to register, click here.