By Kylie Kinley ’13 / Photos by David Mayes ’96
If you see a crowd forming outside Shellenberger Hall on a Wednesday afternoon, do yourself a favor and get in line. The K-State Bakery Science Club is having their weekly bake sale, and product moves fast.
“Our blueberry muffins sold out in 10 minutes this week,” said Katelyn Lee, a junior bakery science major and the club’s treasurer. “There’s a rush right when we open, and then a rush at 3:30 and 4:30 when classes get out.”
Lee stood next to the cash register and greeted customers standing nine deep while other bakery club members cleared empty trays off racks. They rotated with the efficiency of a group of people who spend over four hours together on Tuesday nights in a hot bake lab.
The night before this particular sale, the team had baked 3,074 cookies along with dozens of blueberry muffins and bread dough prep. This included the 1,000 chocolate chip cookies they give out with paid parking stalls at the grain science lot on a K-State home football game day, and participating in a fundraiser bake sale for No Kid Hungry in Kansas City.
That opportunity to create change along with chocolate chip cookies is one of the reasons the club is so successful, said Emily Stangel, a senior in bakery science and the club president.
“It’s a hands-on club,” Stangel said. “There is always something to do and learn about it. Other clubs meet and talk about things. But we make products.”
During the Tuesday night bake, Stangel’s hands were splotched bright blue and kelly green after decorating a cake for a club member’s birthday. The club members eat a meal together between baking and packaging products, and they go over announcements about upcoming events and activities. Bake nights are from four to eight in the evening. Students scale ingredients by weight, and they mix monster cookie dough with a spiral mixer that has a stainless steel bowl the size of a bathtub. Cookies rotate 240 per batch through a Ferris-wheel-like reel oven, and students handle bread with wooden peels. To make the perfect loaf of bread, they use equipment called “proof boxes” and “fermentation cabinets.”
Rebecca Miller-Regan ’90, ’92, ’96, club adviser and assistant professor of bakery science in the Department of Grain Science and Industry, recognized that the networking bake club students do is one of the most important functions of the club.
“Our students are excellent at paying it forward, and they are so good at teaching,” Miller said. “We’ll get you involved, and you don’t already have to be a pastry chef.”
Any student on campus can join the bakery science club, but the club is an official department organization of the Department of Grain Science and Industry.
“The club is a chance to practice what you learn, but the degree we confer is what you sell when you go out in the world,” said Gordon Smith, the head of the Department of Grain Science and Industry. “The careers we prepare students for are great careers. You are making nutritious products, products with emotional ties, and you can feel good about the work you do when you go home at night.”
Students log hours in order to earn money to pay for their travel expenses to national conferences such as the American Society of Baking Convention in Chicago. Along with attending the conference, they help with running meetings and leading roundtables.
“It’s always good to represent something more than yourself,” Smith said. “Our students proudly wear purple and represent K-State. These conferences introduce students to the world of professionals who, a year from now, might be bosses or peers.”
Cultivating industry connections is one of the club’s and the bakery science program’s strengths, Miller said, and alumni in the industry donate ingredients, equipment and technical expertise. They also recruit students for internships and full-time positions.
Chris Caplinger ’99, the plant manager for Bunge Milling, a dry corn mill in Atchison, Kansas, is one of the industry alumni who stays involved with the department. Caplinger attributes his four years as a club member and two years as president for his success in the industry.
“It got me my first job,” Caplinger said. “I gave a speech about being president of the club, one of the milling companies heard me speak, and I truly think that was one of the top reasons they hired me.”
While Caplinger said the chocolate chips cookies were always his favorite, he also remembers making purple French bread for Open House, and even one learning experience of turning fruit cakes into fruit cake cookies.
Caplinger was on campus in September to start recruiting summer interns to work at his company.
“We like to hire students who have shown that they have a broad range of interests,” Caplinger said. “We want them to be active — not just going to school.”
Miller said she hopes bake club alumni also keep up the recruiting work they’ve done to educate high school students about the program.
“We’re K-State’s best-kept secret,” Miller said. “Millers and bakers are a close group, and they’re not marketing people.”
Miller plans on growing K-State students’ expertise with updates to the labs. One of Miller’s goals for the next year is to add a test kitchen lab to the bakery science lab so students can test new products more easily. The current bake lab is set up on a large scale that makes testing products difficult.
“I want to help give students a product development experience and set it up to try real-life issues that happen in the industry,” Miller said.
Kalen Rickmon, a sophomore in bakery science and club member, said he feels confident about his future thanks to the opportunities that Bakery Science Club and the Bakery Science Degree Program have given him.
“Employers are hungry to get us,” Rickmon said, and then laughed, adding no pun was intended.
He also addressed the attitude he sometimes sees from other students about gender issues in the baking industry. Interestingly, the students reported that while the majority of students in the Bakery Science Club are female, the industry is male-dominated.
“Usually guys are like, ‘Really? Baking? I don’t want to do that,’” Rickmon said. “They think baking is too hard for them. They think it’s a science, and they can’t master it. But it’s like doing any sport; you have to practice to get better at it.”
Rickmon refused to choose his favorite baked good.
“It’s like asking a mother, ‘who’s your favorite?’” he said. “But I love to make bread. It’s a never ending possibility.”
Reflective, it seems, of the opportunities available in Bakery Science Club and the Bakery Science and Management degree program.
Note: This article originally appeared in the winter 2018 issue of K-Stater magazine.