Culinary School New York

Archive for the ‘Culinary Training’ Category

If you want to improve your cooking skills there are many things you can do. One of the over looked areas is baking. Maybe it is because people are trying to eat healthier? Taking cake baking courses is a nice way to start building your baking skills, whether it’s for a job or business or for a cool new hobby.

I know for myself I would really like to improve my baking skills. For some reason I think baking is just too difficult. I have no problem tackling very involved dishes, but when it comes to baking something involved I shy away from it.

I know one of the food trends that is happening here in Austin, Texas is specialized food establishments that are run by people skilled in baking. You can’t call them bakeries because they are too specialized. There are a couple of cupcake businesses and another baking business that sells cake lollipops as it’s signature product.

I have read about new baking centered businesses in New York City as well. Many times these new “bakeries” are run out of food trailers.

I’m not sure if these type of businesses will survive because they are so specialized, but it shows that in some cities it is a possibility for starting your own business.

Many schools around the country provide fundamental baking courses to get you started. It might be good to start at a school that has intermediate and advanced baking skills if a school like that is available in your area. Learning advanced skills and the latest trends in baking and pastry is what will help you if you want to start your own business or work as a baker at one of these new, hip places.

These new bakeries remind me of what coffee shops or cafes became in the wake of Starbucks and the many independent cafes. They have a certain feel, usually fairly hip or interesting at least, serving specialized, usually high quality products. While I like a fresh cinnamon roll from a traditional bakery, some of the new concoctions these places come up with are sure fun to try.

To give you an idea what excellent training at a good school can do, two friends started a bakery in Fargo. The one who was the baker took artisan break making courses at an excellent school in San Francisco. With his new skills, their bakery became so busy that sometimes by early afternoon they are sold out.

But you might not want to start your own business or work as a baker, you might just want to bake amazing food for a hobby. By all means take some of these courses and start baking amazing pastries and breads. I think I might join you.

Have you ever thought about looking for a secret restaurant recipe on the internet. It’s crazy, if you search for, say secret KFC recipes, there are over one million results. Talk about a needle in a haystack.

As an avid cook I have a big collection of cookbooks and lots of excellent recipes I’ve found on the internet. The problem with the recipes on the internet is sometimes they aren’t very good. But then again, sometimes they are. I especially like the ones with ratings and comments. The comments are cool because people who have tried the recipe multiple times write about what they’ve done to make it better.

For example, here’s a recipe of mine that I’ve made a ton of times and I personally think it is some of the best gumbo I’ve eaten. Over time I’ve improved it and now it works. Check out a copy of my crawfish and sausage gumbo recipe here.

The funny thing about the title of this post is that it was originally setup to promote this ebook, Secret Restaurant Recipes and all of a sudden the author publishes the ebook as a regular book and now it’s on Amazon for ten bucks. I’m trying to promote it as an affiliate for $39, which by the way never sold. The dude’s sales page did not convert. Anyway, I’m done with that.

A well balanced education at a multi-disciplinary school

The opportunities for culinary instruction in New York City are endless, The Food Studies Program at The New School–which is located in Greenwhich Village–draws on a range of disciplines to explore the connection between food and the world around us. The school offers numerous degree programs and continuing education in the performing arts, management, design and the humanities. This could be a great school to go to to get your culinary certification if you want to take other classes as well. This school within a school program can provide a more balanced education for you as a student.

The teachers are good and the prices reasonable at the New School’s Culinary Program. Courses are generally taught out of the Inn on West 23rd Street, which is homey if not a little cramped at times. There are two types of courses–Master classes, for those going for professional culinary certification and Recreational classes for the non-professional.

The recreational classes provide a wealth of information, especially the chocolate class, which besides being very educational is fun! The instructor has a wealth of chocolate experience and great info on where and what to buy in regards to supplies. While the recreational courses can be very informative, basic information is taught, so depending on your skill level this might be good or bad. If you’re unsure if the course is for you contact the instructor and discuss the skill level of the course and whether you would be a good fit for the class. The recreational classes have great teachers who provide lots of experience and training. You also get lots of excellent recipes and come away with a great training on knife skills–better than some professional culinary programs.

So if you’re looking for a reasonably priced school with a good cooking program and a broad selection of classes to take–including non-cooking–this could be the place for you. Definitely one to consider.

There are many things you can do to improve your cooking skills. I think baking is an area that really gets overlooked, maybe because everyone seems to be trying to eat healthier. But I know for myself that I’d really like to improve my skills at making baked goods. What about you? Have you decided to improve your baking skills? Do you want to be able to make some of the amazing pastries you see at the store, or are you wanting to work in restaurant, or are you wanting to open your own bakery, or maybe even open a food truck like hordes of them we have here in Austin, Texas. One is selling cupcakes and another cake lollipops. One open lot on a hip street near downtown boasts about 8 food trucks - two of them are Airstream trailers.

There are many places throughout the country to learn the skills to make your dreams come true, you just need to find the right classes, or programs to meet your needs. Schools are available to learn fundamental baking techniques that your skills will be built upon. Then you move on to higher level skills including the lastest pastry trends and specialized techniques, like candy and ice cream making, to acquire the exact skills you need to produce the breads or pastries you want, and to get the job you want. I’m sure it goes without saying, the better skills you have, the better job you will get.

To give you an idea what the proper training can do, a friend and his wife opened a bakery in North Dakota. To improve his skills he attended an artisan bread making program in San Francisco to improve his baking skills. With his training he is able to make amazing tasting breads. The bakery they opened is a complete success and they are usually sold out by early afternoon.

Of course it’s hard to take a chance on a class that might mean traveling; might make you have to spend money you can’t really afford spending, but it might be the most important thing you do in furthering your baking career. As my friend has demonstrated, baking courses can really pay off.

If you’re like me and you just want to boost your skills for cooking at home and for friends you obviously aren’t traveling to take a cooking class, unless you’re going to do it on vacation. So just look around town and I’m sure you’ll find the classes to take your skills to the next level.

Every major city is going to have some culinary schools that have baking programs, you may need to travel to get more specialized instruction. If you live in a smaller town and you can’t really travel, you might talk to the local bakery or caterer about getting some instruction. It probably wouldn’t work if they think you are going to try to open a competing bakery though.

While I love cooking a great tasting meal or dish, I think I would really enjoy making a great tasting and amazing looking desert. I just stare at the beautiful cakes and baked goods behind the bakery case that are made by skilled pastry chefs. Wouldn’t it be great to learn how to make these at home? The following is an overview of schools across the country that offer pastry classes for the recreational chef.

The Culinary Institute of America, in Hyde Park, NY, is a great cooking school. Besides professional training they have week long courses on specifics of baking, like fundamental baking, chocolates and confections, desserts and breads and modern plated desserts. This school would be a great place to learn at.

The Institute of Culinary Education has a large series of recreational courses for the non-professional, including, of course, pastry and baking classes. Some of the offering are: introduction to pastry and baking, techniques of bread, cake baking, pastry and chocolate. The prices for these vary, but there is something for everyone with most subjects having basic and advanced courses. The 2009 James Beard Foundation Outstanding Pastry Chef was an ICE alumni.

The San Francisco Baking Institute is another school that provides education opportunities to those who want to improve their skills but not be a pro chef. Their courses include: artisan baking, pastry, breakfast pastry and holiday pastry. The artisan baking and pastry program has three levels from basic to advanced. Most of these are 5 day courses.

Patty Cakes in Queens New York, a leading supplier of cake decorating equipment and candy making supplies has a variety of classes that are reasonably priced: cake decorating course, advance fondant, gumpaste flowers, airbrush techniques, Dominican Cake Decoration and Baking Course. Also on their website they information about Cake decorating guidelines.

Want to learn to cook great but don’t have tons of money to throw at some of the high priced programs? There are cooking schools in Los Angeles that might be a perfect fit. The New School of Cooking could be your answer, they have recreational classes and a professional program for those that want to make a career of it. Their professional program has a chef and pastry course. The program at the New School of Cooking is part-time but based on full-time programs. It is geared towards people that need to work while attending school.

Epicurean School of Culinary Arts has a professional program for chefs, but its strong point is its baking program, which is extensive. The school offers short-term professional programs compared to a 2 year certification program and these are generally more affordable.

California School of Culinary Arts near Los Angleles has a Le Cordon Bleu program that has diploma and associate degree courses. The Le Cordon Bleu program has 15 locations throughout the country and has a well know culinary arts, baking and patisserie, and hospitality and restaurant management program. The school actually houses its own restaurant where students can gain important hands on experience. The school also works had at getting graduates their first job in their new culinary career.

In Los Angeles their are a number of programs geared towards people who want to become sushi chefs. One is the Sushi Institute of America. They have 4 week intensive programs to get you going quick to start working as a sushi chef.

The Sushi Chef Institute is another school with intensive programs in the preparation of sushi. Another is the Tokyo Sushi Academy.

Like New York City, Los Angeles is a large dynamic town with many excellent restaurants for aspiring chefs to work. While New York is considered thee place to go if you want to make your mark as a chef, Los Angeles has got to be second in this competitive arena.

Online cooking classes are a great way to learn to cook on your own time. These courses would be great for someone learning to cook, a foodie who loves cooking, or for a person who wants a career as a chef, but doesn’t want to dish out the big bucks for a full academic chef training program. Obviously, one class does not meet everyone’s needs. Some basic classes don’t have to be taught by a chef–someone with excellent cooking skills would work, also, this would probably keep the price of the program down.

One of the better looking courses that might be geared to those looking at cooking as a career path is 911 Chef Eric Online, one of his offerings is a course on food safety and knife skills. This would also be good if you’re just really into cooking and you want to improve your skills. The course is 8 weeks long and costs $195.

Another course, Food Done Right, is taught by Chef Barry, who graduated from the Culinary Institute of America. It’s a monthly membership program that gets you to learn to cook without recipes. They teach you to cook using simple to follow video courses. Click Here for more information on this course.

But you don’t have to spend a time to learn cooking skills online, many websites offer free cooking instruction. Bon Appetit, Arizona Central Cooking 101, and the Food Network offers cooking demos. Another good source is searching on Youtube for specific recipes. Of course, this method, might give you some not so great results. By using free cooking instruction from know companies, you most likely will find a recipe and instruction that will work for you and taste good.

One of the things to keep in mind if you are paying for a course online, is what kind of interaction are you going to get with the instructor. Do they have an online forum or chat area. If all you’ll get is email support, how long will it take for the instructor to respond to your questions? You want to feel comfortable that you will get enough support, if needed, to make the cost of the online training worth the expense.

Besides enjoying the quiet of the very early morning a pastry chef can use their creativity to create mouthwatering deserts, pastries and breads. Many cooking schools from New York to Los Angeles offer excellent programs in pastry arts. Every major city has a least on major cooking school and some like New York have many culinary programs.

The French Culinary Institutes Pastry Arts program is probably one of the best. They focus on the art and science of baking. By the end of the program you will be able to design every aspect of wonderful desserts.

Their is always a need for talented and highly skilled pastry chefs to work in restaurants and catering establishments. The job outlook for this career is very good, since their is a need in restaurants, hotels, catering and bakeries. The pay isn’t bad either, it ranges from $34,000 to $56,000 depending on the city with Las Vegas being the highest paying city for this type of work. But you’ll need to be in the business for many years to reach the higher level paying positions. It probably goes without saying that the better the pastry chef school you attend the better chance you have to getting the better paying jobs.

For starting out you’ll be making an average of $10.50 per hour. If it doesn’t matter where you live, you can research cities like Las Vegas that have higher pay rates and look to see if they have low cost rent. The last thing you want is a town that has a high cost of living but they pay pastry chefs a low wage.

The Culinary Institute at Hyde Park has one of the better pastry chef programs. If you are unable to go to school in New York, it might be good to get as much information from them and use it to compare schools in your area to help you decide where to go.

New York City is the culinary capital of the United States. Some of the best cooking schools are located in NYC. Private and group classes are available. Also, famous chefs teach some of the classes De Gustibus Cooking School at Macy’s, like Mario Batalli. The classes run the gamut of styles and regions. Want to take a Japanese cooking class or learn to bake cakes, it’s all here for you. While you have an almost unlimited selection of courses you can take, trying to decide on one could be a challenge. The following is a selection of some of the cooking education available in the city.

The Institute of Culinary Education offers programs in culinary arts, pastry and baking arts, and culinary management. The culinary arts courses provide skill development in theory, technique, palate training, speed and teamwork. The pastry and baking arts program is overseen by Chef Nick Malgieri, world-renowned author, TV personality and former executive pastry chef at Windows on the World. The culinary management program is geared to those who want to start and run restaurants, catering operations, specialty food stores.

The French Culinary Institute of New York City, has programs in: classic culinary arts, classic pastry arts, the art of international bread baking. The classic culinary arts program covers classic French techniques that form the building blocks of all great western cuisine. Top pastry chefs from around the world teach the classic pastry arts program.

Home Cooking New York is not an academic culinary school, but are private cooking instructors, bringing chefs to your home to teach you to cook. The class is 2.5 hours and centers around creating a complete meal.

There are many private and class size cooking instruction in NYC, some can be found on CitySearch.com and also have customer ratings, which I find to be a great way to weed through things. If you’re looking for a true cooking program the Institute of Culinary Education or the French Culinary Institute are two great possibilities to choose from.