KANSAS CITY, MO — Baking & Pastry Curriculum (BAPC), a first-of-its-kind educational resource for grades 6-12, has gained quite a bit of attention since it landed on the market just a few months ago. The program is geared toward Career and Technical Education (CTE) instructors who lead culinary arts programs at the middle school and high school levels.
Authored by Chef Kimberly Houston, a thought leader in baking education, workforce development, and preparing the next generation of baking professionals, the curriculum’s goal is to support teachers in the classroom and introduce students to the baking industry at an early age.
Chef Kimberly recently sat down for an exclusive interview with Craft to Crumb to share why she took on the project and what’s next.
What inspired you to write the Bakery & Pastry Curriculum?
I was speaking to CTE instructors at an Atlanta high school about how they could go “beyond the bake sale” in their classrooms, and I realized, based on the questions they were asking, that they’re teachers, not entrepreneurs. Those are two completely different things. Teachers don’t know or understand what happens in our industry.
I realized that if teachers don’t understand the industry, and the entrepreneurs I interview say they can’t find good help, and college professors tell me kids are coming to them without the basic knowledge they need, I had to figure out where the problem was. I discovered that there were no standards for baking and pastry education at this level in the US. Teachers had to create their own path.
How did you decide what to include?
The curriculum is aligned to American Culinary Federation, Retail Bakers of America, ProStart and ServSafe standards. I started there, seeing what they wanted students to know, and organizing the information into a curriculum, which is now very robust.
Every teacher is in a different situation. Some have six students, some have 30. Some have students who can’t read well; some have state-of-the-art kitchens; some don’t. The curriculum can be adjusted to fit their program.
How is the BAPC organized?
The recipes are step-by-step with photos and explanations of the science. For example, if a teacher doesn’t understand why they need to cream butter and sugar, there’s an explanation of why it’s important and what happens if it’s not done. They can, in turn, explain the science to their students.
What’s your long-term vision?
I think the Bakery & Pastry Curriculum will give the industry a head start on identifying the next generation of bakers. By the time students reach high school, they’ll know if this is what they want to do.
Le Cordon Bleu taught me how to bake. It did not give me entrepreneurship skills or show me how to run a business. The next iteration of this curriculum focuses on entrepreneurship for culinary arts so kids can learn in high school what entrepreneurship actually looks like versus what they see on TikTok.
On the flip side, even if a student doesn’t want to go into culinary or become a baker, by going through a class that uses this curriculum, they’ll learn the soft skills that many kids aren’t learning anymore. It introduces them to how to speak to others, the importance of cleanliness in the kitchen and other things.
My whole goal is to help the industry make better bakers.
Baking & Pastry Curriculum (BAPC) is a complete instructional system for Grades 6–12, created by culinary educator and Le Cordon Bleu-trained pastry chef Kimberly I. Houston. Across two progressive levels, BAPC provides 16 fully developed instructional units and 48 sequenced lessons connecting classroom instruction, baking science, hands-on production, assessment, and product evaluation. Curriculum content references competencies reflected in the ACF Certified Fundamentals Pastry Cook and RBA Certified Journey Baker frameworks. BAPC is licensed annually to schools and districts and does not require individual student accounts or collect student information. BAPC is developed by Mise & Method Education, LLC. Learn more at bakingandpastrycurriculum.com.
