Don't let your frustrations get the best of you, take a deep breath and go back into it.
Cristina Ramos comes from Ecuador and has lived in the US for quite a while now. She says that confectionery serves as a form of therapy for her, a way to relax after work. While preparing a cake at home, she realized she needed to hone in on her baking proficiency and decided to look for pastry programs. Two weeks later, she was at Kul IN.
Kul IN: Tell us more about yourself and your background, when did you decide to become a pastry chef?
- I started decorating cakes just for fun learning from Youtube and I think I took one baking class and I really enjoyed it. It was very relaxing for me, so I continued doing that but I stopped baking for a everal years because I was at college and didn't have much time. I finally got back into it but I obviously lacked skills and practice. I made one cake for order recently, and it came out terrible in my opinion. The people were happy with it and liked it but I hated it and relized I needed to take some more classes and get some more skills. I started looking for culinary and pastry programs. I found Kul IN and two weeks later I was here.
Kul IN: What was your favorite thing about the program?
- I really enjoyed making the foccaccia, which was very surprising because I'm not a bread person but it was very fun. I love the taste, and I love just the way it is made, there's a lot of steps and processes to make it. Another I really enjoyed making was craqulen because you first have to make a pata choux and than additionally, you have to make this sugar paste type cookie. I thought that was pretty cool to do. The cakes have all been so fun to make, and decorations and plating are my favorite as well.
Kul IN: Tell us more about your final exam desserts
- I'm most proud of my foccaccia. I prepared a plain foccacia with fleur de sel, wrapped it in prosciutto and added fig jam. I paired white wine with it, and it turned out perfect.
Kul IN: Why do you love being a pastry chef?
- I like how creative you can be with pastry. I like that it gives you something to look forward to when you are baking it. You have this final product you are waiting for, and all the decorating and processes serve the final purpose. I get excited about that and I like how my mind starts to wander off into how I'm going to decorate it and how I'm going to plate it.
Kul IN: What are your plans for the future?
- My mom has a small business, and she makes cookies, cakes but the plan is to expand into other types of pastry, to attract a different population. I want to conttribute by incorporating different tyes of cakes, not just regular fondant cakes, and I also want to add smaller pastries like monoportions and craqulen. That would be really good for our target market.
Kul IN: What advice would you give to future students?
- Don't let your frustrations get the best of you, take a deep breath and go back into it.
