State Champion Baker From Brick Headed To National Competition

For lots of kids, a summer job on the boardwalk is simply a means to an end: a way to put some cash in your pocket while you hang out at the beach all summer.

Chris Castellano says it was a summer job at a pizza place that changed the direction of his life. Now the Brick Memorial graduate and post-secondary student, who won the New Jersey SkillsUSA baking competition in May, is headed to the SkillsUSA National Competition in late June in Louisville, Ky., with hopes of bringing home a national gold medal for his baking skills.

Castellano was studying in the construction track of the Ocean County Vocational Technical Schools when his summer job at Pizza Plus on the Point Pleasant Beach boardwalk sparked an interest in food.

“I started working there when I was 14, because my family was friends with the owners,” Castellano said. Over time, he found himself really intrigued with cooking. As he headed into his junior year of high school, he asked to change his vocational school track.

“I had missed a lot of school because of illness the year before,” he said, and the initial reaction from the vocational school administration was to deny his request for that reason. But with the support of his teacher in the construction program, Castellano was permitted to make the switch.

“He saw my passion for cooking,” Castellano said. “I was talking about it all the time.”

Castellano was so passionate, in fact, that his hard work paid off in a gold medal and a trip to the national competition in 2013.

The focus on commercial baking came in the last year, he said, adding that he is inspired by Chef Dennis Melia, his culinary arts instructor at OCVTS who also is the pastry chef at Klein’s Fish Market in Belmar, where Castellano works, honing his skills under Melia’s tutelage.

“When he hired me, I didn’t know a thing about baking,” Castellano said. But he has fallen in love with it, spending hours each day striving to perfect his skills.

“The class (at OCVTS) only lasts about two hours,” he said, but he frequently stays after class, baking in the program’s kitchens until the school day ends at 2:30 p.m. after starting at 7:30 a.m.

The practice is critical, he said. At the state SkillsUSA competition he had four hours to bake the following: a decorated 7-inch round birthday cake; danishes in both snail (the round, fruit-filled shape) and figure-8s; single knot dinner rolls, blueberry muffins and spritz cookies.

At the national competition, he’ll have seven hours to bake French baguettes, butter tea cookies, a decorated quarter sheet cake, a filled coffee ring, cinnamon buns, sweet rolls in a shape, blueberry muffins, eclairs and cream puffs, and an apple pie.

“You have to show them you’re organized,” he said.

The actual baking itself isn’t the only part of the competition, Castellano said. It also includes a written test and other events during the week o competition, which begins June 22. He competes on June 24.

During his weeks and months of practice, the baked goods have been sold through the vocational school’s bakery as well as given to other culinary arts students for their feedback.

The biggest flop?

“When I made danishes the first time, I overproofed them,” he said.

More recently, a three-tiered cake he baked with classmate Chelsea Sands for a special event involving the district’s business administrator received rave reviews.

“He told us he was very impressed,” Castellano said.

Castellano said he is headed to The Restaurant School at Walnut Hill College after this year and hopes to compete on the USA Pastry Team, which took second in the world this year, he said. Two of Melia’s former students are members of that team, Castellano said.

And beyond that?

“I’d like to own a couple of restaurants,” he said. “An Italian restaurant and a seafood restaurant.”

“And of course a bakery,” he said.

(Chris Castellano listens as Brick Mayor John Ducey reads a proclamation Tuesday night lauding Castellano’s state championship at the New Jersey SkillsUSA baking competition. Credits: Karen Wall)