GUERNSEY – Guernsey-Sunrise culinary students took home honors from a baking competition in Cheyenne. The Wyoming Prostart Competition, sponsored by the Wyoming Hospitality and Travel Coalition Education Foundation (WHTC), gives student across Wyoming the opportunity to compete in areas necessary to the hospitality industry: culinary, management, cake baking and bread baking. 

Guernsey’s Sam Baker, Joey Lewis and Kris White took home third place with the breads. They made focaccia, ciabatta, naan bread, and sourdough bread sticks. Rylie Thompson, Brook Offe, Berkleigh Mark and Jacelyn Schiele made blueberry bagels, garlic pita bread, everything cheese onion bread, and chocolate sourdough bread. White and Tracy Chamberlain competed in cake decorating with a pureed strawberry cake, with a lemon buttercream frosting. 

“The kids were proud of what they accomplished,” instructor Kathy Sierra said. “For the last few weeks, the kids have been baking, baking, baking!” 

She explained there is a lot of trial and error, and the students have worked hard to find out which recipes did or did not work for them, and the sourdough is an involved process that takes 7 – 10 days, with many steps in-between, to even get to the point of baking. 

“They had to make the cake four times before they had what they wanted it to be,” she said. Sierra explained the competition was a learning process.  “They would have done well in the cake competition too: the cake tasted amazing, and the frosting was fantastic, but we had to make the frosting ahead of time and refrigerate it. By the time we got to competition it was still hard, and they couldn’t get it softened in time to work well.” 

“Some of the kids have never been to any competition at all. This was a learning year for all of us, but the kids did amazing,” Sierra said, adding in last year’s competition, Thompson, Offee and Mark did win first in the baking. 

“This event provides a remarkable platform to witness and promote Wyoming’s emerging generation of talent in the hospitality industry. It is an unparalleled opportunity to connect and show support for these bright minds that are shaping the future of this industry,” according to the Wyoming Governor’s Hospitality and Tourism website about the Wyoming ProStart Invitational. 

For more information on ProStart, see their website at whtcef.org.