Girls From New Brunswick and Edison Win School Baking Contest

The contest began with 11 cakes.

But when it was over, tenth-graders Jessica Jimenez of New Brunswick and Janai Beck-Jones of Edison had the “last cake standing.”

The two students attend the Piscataway Campus of the Middlesex County Vocational and Technical Schools. The 38 baking students there marked the end of Career and Technical Education Month in February with a “Last Cake Standing” competition, according to a news release from the school.

According to that news release:

The students created cakes representing an area of study, such as a computer keyboard and monitor for the Computer and Business Technology shop, and a fish, cleaver and vegetables for Culinary Arts program. All decorations were edible.

Instructor Maria Stampoulos, a professional pastry chef and a 2006 graduate of the district’s Perth Amboy campus, said the students learned about decorating, fondant sculpting, cake structure and stability, painting, airbrushing and molding ingredients.

“I’m very impressed with a lot of the cakes,” she said. “We’re demonstrating what we do in this shop. It’s pretty cool, right?”

Sophomore Nicole Cardona, of Piscataway, worked on the cosmetology cake, which featured a hair dryer and nail polish.

“It was kind of inspired by a cake that Chef (Stampoulos) had done before,” Cardona said.

The winning cake represented the Agriculture and Ornamental Horticulture shop.

“This was fun,” Jiminez said. “We never did anything like this before.”

The Middlesex County Vocational and Technical School District was the first county vocational school district in the nation. It is celebrating its centennial during the 2014-2015 school year. It has seven schools on five campuses, in East Brunswick, Edison, Piscataway, Perth Amboy and Woodbridge.

Photo courtesy of the Middlesex County Vocational and Technical School District