Commercial Baking and Culinary Baking students have been preparing Thanksgiving dishes from pies to stuffing for the “Everything But The Turkey” Broadmoor Bistro Thanksgiving sale this month.
The event will take place at the Broadmoor Bistro at the Center for Academic Achievement. Orders end Nov. 21 so that students can deliver the pre-ordered food to customers’ cars on the 22 and 23.
Students have been working during and after school hours for three weeks on different dishes. According to junior and Commercial Baking student Slater Cummings, four instructors have led the students as they have spent the last three weeks in preparation for the event. Cummings has also worked on school nights at the CAA advertising their pies and other dishes in preparation for the sale.
“I stand by the pastry case and usually I advertise the ‘Everything But The Turkey’ sale every night on Wednesdays when we have restaurant, ” Cummings said. “Just last night, we were advertising the pies that we sell.”
Sophomore Gabe Anderson is also part of Commercial Baking and said he has helped to make over a hundred pies. He’ll be helping deliver the pastries to customers.
The team has made over 1,000 pies in the past few weeks along with huge batches of all kinds of Thanksgiving side dishes. The hardest part has been learning mixing methods and deciding when to add each ingredient, according to Anderson.
“We have historical information to start from the previous years,” restaurant manager and Culinary Arts teacher Justin Hoffman said. “This is broken out to daily production objectives, with the assistance of students from all of the district high schools.”
He adds that the largest production days are usually the Tuesday and Wednesday before Thanksgiving, when they bake around 600 pies, 3,000 dinner rolls and 1,000 cinnamon rolls.
According to Cummings, the students have prepared and will sell many pies, casseroles, and other thanksgiving dishes.
Cummings has enjoyed being part of the sale so far and having the ability to express their creativity through their work.
“I’m super excited because I get to contribute to this and get a higher learning experience, ” Cummings said. “I’ll get to express myself in the way that we actually get to decorate the pies ourselves and do the crust ourselves.”
The money collected from the student’s hard work will go towards getting more equipment and ingredients for the upcoming year, according to Hoffman. The revenue from the pie sale also supplements expenses for the Broadmoor Urban Farm and GreenHouse.
“It’s beneficial for the community to experience the hands-on learning that our students are involved in on a daily basis,” Hoffman said. “Our motto is, ‘Education has never tasted so good!’