Winnipeg students showcase culturally diverse foods with pop-up bakeries

It’s been the sweetest of weeks at Red River College Polytechnic Polytech’s professional baking and pastry class.

Students were tasked with creating their own pop-up bakeries – from inception all the way to execution.

And the groups made sure each dish represented who they are.

“We had wanted to try to kind of reconnect people with flavours that might be from different continents,” said student Alex Carrick.

“We really tried to bring in flavours that people might be missing or that they might miss from home.”

In creating their pop-up bakery “Tap Root Bakery,” Carrick and her teammates took inspiration from Zambian, Chinese and Middle Eastern influences.

Among their menu hits were a “spring bloom” pizza (focaccia base with spinach, nuts, goat cheese, seeds, brie and hot honey); taro chiffon cake (layer of taro and a layer of coconut jelly between the cake); and a matcha scone with a raspberry cream cheese filling.

“First for the matcha, I think Asian people all like that,” said student Wenze Shi, one of the minds behind the fan-favourite scone.

Shi says the inspiration wasn’t just in the flavour. “The colours like the pink with the green, spring is coming. So you feel like all of the hope and all of springs.”

Carrick says Tap Root began as an idea to “bring people back in touch with their cultures.”

“When we were thinking about kind of the idea of reconnecting people with their cultures, we thought about trees,” she said. “The primary root system that new seedlings have is called a tap root.”

It’s a concept fully embraced by RRC Polytech instructor Richard Warren.

“It’s always good to pull from what’s dear to you and important to you because I think that translates into your product,” Warren said. “If you don’t care about what you’re doing, as they say, the proof is in the pudding, right?”

The final day for the pop-up bakeries happening at the Paterson GlobalFoods Institute is Thursday