What it's like to take Cook­ing Class at The Acad­e­my of Bak­ing and Pas­try Arts

This pri­vate school is cre­at­ing love for food in the Caribbean and be­yond

The Bak­ing Acad­e­my’s ar­ray of lessons rang­ing from avant-garde desserts to the best choco­late cake all the way to de­li­cious pas­tas and hot pots are taught by some of the best chefs in the coun­try. What­ev­er tech­nique or recipe you’d like to learn, or per­fect, is sure to be avail­able at Trinidad’s The Acad­e­my of Bak­ing and Pas­try Arts. The Acad­e­my’s love af­fair with food and its com­mit­ment to pro­duc­ing well-round­ed, tal­ent­ed chefs is un­like any oth­er on the is­land. This is ev­i­dent in the nu­mer­ous tes­ti­mo­ni­als from grate­ful stu­dents. One stu­dent com­plet­ed her manda­to­ry in­tern­ship at one Miche­lin-star restau­rant, Cap d’An­tibes in the south of France.

In any of their work­shops or class­es you can find stu­dents from An­tigua, the Philip­pines and all around the world. High-qual­i­ty class­es, bril­liant chefs and state-of-the-art fa­cil­i­ties—there's no bet­ter place in Trinidad to mas­ter the bak­ing and pas­try arts. Plus, they make at­tend­ing these pro­grams eas­i­er on your pock­et with pay­ment plans avail­able for all pro­fes­sion­al pro­grams. With ra­di­ant re­views like this, Trinidad and To­ba­go won’t be short of top-notch chefs any­time soon. Here are our few favourites that’ll in­spire you sign up for a class right af­ter read­ing this ar­ti­cle.

Kids Camps

"Amaz­ing fa­cil­i­ties! This is per­fect for my bud­ding 10-year old chef/cake dec­o­ra­tor! She loves it there. The staff are at­ten­tive and friend­ly and the hand­outs are de­tailed and easy to fol­low." —Christa M.

"My 9-year old and al­most-7-year-old did the four day sum­mer camp- pass­port around the world. My kids to­tal­ly en­joyed the ex­pe­ri­ence. They were ex­cit­ed to go each day. Every mem­ber of the staff, in­clud­ing chef and all the Aun­ties, were warm, ac­com­mo­dat­ing and very child-friend­ly. I was al­so very im­pressed with the fa­cil­i­ty and found it to be pro­fes­sion­al and first class. And the best part was the kids com­ing home every­day with the most de­li­cious treats! The chick­en puff, fried chick­en, ap­ple pie and home­made vanil­la ice cream were just hits among some oth­er ex­cit­ing good­ies!!! I am so hap­py my kids got the op­por­tu­ni­ty to ex­pe­ri­ence this won­der­ful art you of­fered!" —Se­lene M.

Team Build­ing Pri­vate Cook­ing Par­ty

"I vis­it­ed as part of my com­pa­ny's year end/team build­ing event and it was fan­tas­tic...even for some­one who has nev­er cooked in their life. There was mu­sic, drink­ing, light-heart­ed con­ver­sa­tions and the chefs were pa­tient (even when I ac­ci­den­tal­ly threw down a dish of melt­ed but­ter) and fun­ny. It is dif­fer­ent from the run of the mill com­pa­ny ac­tiv­i­ties and I thor­ough­ly en­joyed my­self." —Vj M.

Pro­fes­sion­al Class­es

7 Week Bak­ing

Learn how to bake some of the most com­plex breads in a course taught through demon­stra­tions, prac­ti­cals, lec­tures and ex­am­i­na­tions. Pâte à choux and puff pas­try are in­clud­ed (say hel­lo to the best puffs!), as well as cheese­cakes, cook­ies and choco­late tech­niques. You will ex­plore cakes, fill­ings and ic­ings. Walk away with the abil­i­ty to im­press your friends. Don't wor­ry if you're new, the Acad­e­my is there for all lev­els.

"I start­ed off at­tend­ing 'make n dine' din­ner class­es, then when the 7-week pro­fes­sion­al bak­ing course was of­fered, I de­cid­ed that the time had come for me to fi­nal­ly do what I al­ways want­ed to do! I en­joyed every mo­ment I've spent in the school thus far and will con­tin­ue to at­tend class­es there. I es­pe­cial­ly like that my spe­cial re­li­gious needs are ad­dressed kind­ly too (Mus­lim)" —Na­dia M.

13 Week Cake Artistry

This amaz­ing pro­gram will teach you the fun­da­men­tals of cake de­sign. Learn cake dec­o­rat­ing, bak­ing, but­ter­cream pip­ing, fon­dant, hand mod­el­ling, sug­ar flower skills and much more. You're ba­si­cal­ly learn­ing to cre­ate show-stop­pers. Per­fect for be­gin­ners or pro­fes­sion­als in the food in­dus­try! Maybe it's time to en­ter Cake Wars?

"My ex­pe­ri­ence was amaz­ing, it was in­spir­ing and it was chal­leng­ing. It was the first time I was with a group of tal­ent­ed women that want­ed noth­ing more than for every­one to suc­ceed. The team at the school made you feel like you were al­ready a cake artist from the first day. Can­dice Eligon was amaz­ing shar­ing her pas­sion and leav­ing no ques­tion unan­swered. There was no com­pe­ti­tion or judge­ment just sup­port and mo­ti­va­tion. The en­vi­ron­ment fos­tered at the Acad­e­my en­sures that we were the strongest group of women any­one could imag­ine with great friend­ships formed. My time taught me that it's nev­er too late to fol­low a dream or change di­rec­tions." —Melis­sa L.

10 Week In­tro­duc­tion To Culi­nary Arts

This pro­gram was cre­at­ed with the culi­nary novice in mind to pro­vide stu­dents with the es­sen­tial cook­ing tech­niques and culi­nary ground­ing to mas­ter clas­sic and mod­ern cook­ing tech­niques. You will learn all the im­por­tant cook­ing meth­ods from sim­ple roast­ing to mousse mak­ing. You're go­ing to walk out a pro­fes­sion­al.

“I had some ba­sic ex­pe­ri­ence in a short cook­ing course pre­vi­ous­ly, but as I dis­cov­ered, The Bak­ing Acad­e­my was a whole oth­er di­men­sion in cook­ing for me. The skills, the staff, the ameni­ties, the guest chefs, the in­gre­di­ents, every­thing was first class. It cer­tain­ly was a bonus that my class­mates were some of the most in­cred­i­bly tal­ent­ed, kind, gen­er­ous and pro­fes­sion­al women and gen­tle­men that I'd ever met. I rec­om­mend this school and its cours­es to any­one who's very in­ter­est­ed, mild­ly cu­ri­ous or flat out un­sure how to boil wa­ter. At the end of any class or course, cer­tifi­cate or de­gree pro­gram of­fered here, I guar­an­tee if you lacked con­fi­dence or just scraped by in the kitchen be­fore well let's just say the ex­pe­ri­ence leaves you in­vig­o­rat­ed, ex­cit­ed and with a de­sire to ex­plore and push your palate and tan­ta­lize your taste buds to un­equiv­o­cal heights. Go ahead and push the en­ve­lope on your­self and open up a whole new world of culi­nary ex­pe­ri­ence! I did, and I have ab­solute­ly no re­grets!!!!” —Re­han­na B.

Diplo­ma In Bak­ing and Pas­try Arts

This full-time, one-year pro­gram, com­pris­ing of over 660 hours of tu­ition with lessons and hands-on-train­ing, taught three days per week, will mould you in­to a su­per­star chef. You learn quick breads, ad­vanced doughs, tarts, pies and much more. And af­ter, stu­dents can en­roll in a one-month long in­tern­ship any­where in the world! (France, here we come.)

"It's the on­ly place I ex­pe­ri­ence every­thing! I nev­er thought I would miss some­where that much now that I grad­u­at­ed with my Diplo­ma, I re­al­ly en­joyed be­ing here, wish I could even do it again! If you want to be suc­cess­ful­ly and be a suc­cess­ful chef here is the place to be." —Nat­ti­to S.

Recre­ation­al Work­shops

These are 4- to 8-hour class­es that are cen­tred around a spe­cif­ic les­son are more re­laxed and fun but still ed­u­ca­tion­al. It’s a great way to spend a few hours with friends while learn­ing, bak­ing, cook­ing and eat­ing!

"Best culi­nary school in Trinidad! Out­stand­ing qual­i­ty, love­ly staff, ful­ly equipped fa­cil­i­ties! I just loved it!" —Do­ra J.

"To­day was the best ex­pe­ri­ence ever! Your Donuts, beignets and chur­ros class was great! Thanks a mil­lion! I will be back for more!!" —Latisha Y.

“The best part about at­tend­ing class­es - any­one at any lev­el can join and feel com­fort­able ! When I went to my first class I felt so over­whelmed but the chefs and par­tic­i­pants are so friend­ly and help­ful. You learn a lot and recipes that you thought were com­plex are so sim­pli­fied that you want to try it in your kitchen the next day. I would rec­om­mend these class­es to spend qual­i­ty time with your friends and fam­i­ly while get­ting food re­wards at the end.” —El­y­see G.