Culinary students batter state competition

With little preparation due to snow days and frozen frosting, freshmen and first year culinary students demonstrated what happens when Douglas High School shows up ready to frost some cake and show off their skills.

Mary Goldwater and Paizley Ramirez competed during the ProStart Invitational Competition at the University of Nevada Las Vegas on March 4. And despite, a bumpy start, both felt accomplished and satisfied with having been part of the competition, including taking home a second place award.

“Overall, I loved it,” said Goldwater. “It was nice, a little stressful, well like a lot, but then you come out and you’re just like ‘I did that,’ and you just feel really happy for yourself.”

As part of the National Restaurant Association, a high school curriculum program for culinary techniques and restaurant management skills, student teams from across the country demonstrate their skills in culinary and business acumen at state competitions.

“This is my first year teaching at Douglas and taking students,” Douglas High School Culinary teacher Sarah Crofton. “We had little time to prepare and practice because we had three snow days leading up to the event, but I was glad I had students willing to go and take the risk. They kind of winged it but did amazing.”

Students could participate in four events at the competition: culinary, management, tier cream cake and buttercream cake. Goldwater and Ramirez competed in the buttercream event where the objective was to decorate a cake according to the theme, “The Great Outdoors.”

When Ramirez started her cake, her frosting was frozen, and she didn’t have the right frosting tips.

“I stuck to my idea anyways and used the things I did bring to make my idea real,” said Ramirez. “I felt so relieved when I was able to set my cake on the table and relax a little.”

Her cake was an “Under the Stars” design with evergreen trees around a dark blue cake representing the night sky and white dots as the stars. Because she didn’t have the right frosting tips, Ramirez did the design completely by hand with a spatula.

“I think it was a really good experience to have so, now I know and I’m more prepared for next year,” said Ramirez.

Goldwater ran out of time while making her cake.

“You’re given a certain amount of time to decorate and clean up your station and I went over so I lost eight points,” she said.

Despite the hit, Goldwater received second place for her “Just a Log,” design with the initials “G,” “R,” and “C” on the side.

“We had to incorporate writing on our cake and when the judges saw the initials, they thought it was sneaky,” said Goldwater. “They liked it though.”

The initials were for the Goldwater, Ramirez and Crofton for representing Douglas High School, she said.

Overall, Goldwater and Ramirez were honored to represent Douglas High School and to have the opportunity to be with other culinary students and professionals.

“They weren’t sure how they would do, but they had really good spirits and really showed up and gave it their all,” said Crofton. “It showed, yes, Douglas is here, and we have a good culinary program.”