Senior Connor Bauer, a second year baking student at A.W. Beattie Career Center, recently won a prestigious pastry baking contest and will now advance to the national competition. His victory in this competition was a result of years of hard work and a past of dedication and perseverance.
His first experience at Beattie was in a tour in sophomore year, where he immediately fell in love with the Pastry Arts program.
“I went for a tour through Beattie with my first look at the Pastry Program and the second at the ECE, early childhood education, program, which were both great, but I felt more in love with the Pastry Program, not just because they gave us food, but more because of their instructors. They’re all great. They have taught baking for years. They know everything. And they teach really well,” said Bauer.
By entering this program, Connor was also following in the close footsteps of his parents.
“My dad’s been in a kitchen his whole life, and my mom bakes pastries on the side, like cheesecakes and things like that,” said Bauer.
The competition that Connor participated in was sponsored by an organization called the Family, Career and Community Leaders of America. Along doing a variety of inspiring community service activities, this organization also hosts a bunch of different competitions, especially in areas like early childhood education and the culinary arts.
For the Sunday through Wednesday that he was at the competition, Connor stayed at the Pocono Mountains at the Kalahari Resort. Connor and his fellow competitors competed at Lackawanna College.

“We went there pretty early in the morning. I think nine o’clock was my competition time. This was hectic. There was all this new stuff, and I went up against four or five other people in this smallish room to compete against them,” said Connor.
Connor remarked that it was difficult to explain how he prepared.
“I’d like to say there’s a way to prepare yourself, but the only true way to prepare yourself is to do it yourself. Beattie, right before that, had their fish fries that they do. They were great; I guess service is the best way to prepare, then. But through there, I was able to time myself to do everything within however many hours, close to two or three,” said Connor. “If I hadn’t had time to practice it beforehand and do everything I needed to within that time, I would have probably failed. Other than that, it was just practicing recipes.
Leading up to the competition, Connor described the nerves that were plaguing him and the initial feeling of nervousness.
“I had all this fear going into it…I was maybe a little fearful that I might mess something up or forget something, but I was probably the best I could be for having my first competition. I was more worried that someone else was gonna beat me, obviously.”
Despite these worries initially, after arriving at the competition, Connor felt relieved and was able to garner some confidence as he prepared to spend the next two or three hours in the kitchen under the judge’s watch, all while being judged against the performance of his competitors.
“But when I got to the competition, I felt great…I crushed it. Not to flatter myself, but I did crush it.”
According to a Facebook post from A.W. Beattie, prior to the competition, Bauer received a packet of recipes to practice, and at the competition he had to prepare and bake one type of quick bread, a choux pastry, a cookie and decorate a quarter-sheet cake in two hours and 45 minutes.
Connor made cutout sugar cookies, éclairs, blueberry muffins, and decorated a high school graduation cake with black, purple, yellow and white icing.
After the chaos of baking and preparing all of the desserts, the competitors were then evaluated for their performance off of a ‘point system’ to determine the winner.
“Their scoring was weird. They do it off of a point system. So, I got 1st place, but I did not get gold. I scored around 88 points, but if I had gotten 90 or above, I would have gotten the gold. But I’ll take silver for getting 1st place. It was an amazing competition.”
Connor’s win at the FCCLA earned him the Pennsylvania State Championship, meaning that he would now get the opportunity to advance to the national competition held in Washington, D.C. in early July.
“Because I won, I have the chance to go to the national competition in July. So I’m doing that. It’s Monday to Friday, 1st or 2nd week in July that I’m gonna be going to. I’m so excited.”
However, the national competition isn’t the only thing that Connor will be looking forward to. In the fall, he plans to attend the Culinary Institute of America in Hyde Park, New York.
“I mean, I figured out the rest of my life pretty much. I’m going to one of the best culinary schools in America for pastry arts. And so if anyone were to truly feel lost, explore every option. Talk to your counselor…but, If you can, do Beattie. Beattie is amazing.”