Imagine a world where there were Willy Wonka pop-ups on every corner. Big windows decorated in bright pink, pastel purple and gold that looked like someone was having a birthday party, but was really just a place to watch pastry fairies making sweet treats inside their workshop. Treats Mr. Wonka would approve of, like cakes in every color of the rainbow, made by local baker, Lady Grey. Homemade birthday cakes, chocolate chip cookie ice cream sandwiches, ice cream cake drizzled in chocolate or Oompa Loompa-hued purple vanilla soft serve with toppings like coconut cake crumbs, rainbow peanut crunch and strawberry passion fruit dip that makes every sundae look like it has a colorful top hat.
The Pastry Project in downtown Seattle could be the model from which all other Wonka windows are built. To get the desserts of your dreams, all you have to do is stand in line on a magical street full of old brick buildings—many of which are part of the city’s famous underground tour because, yes, there is an actual abandoned city beneath the ground—with a tiny park and 22-foot waterfall directly across the street.
Serving you would be co-founders, Emily Kim and Heather Hodge, who launched The Pastry Project in 2020 as a social enterprise dedicated to breaking barriers to employment and making pastry education more accessible.
Their free, 20-week baking and pastry training program offers students baking and pastry job skills training, soft skills practice and job placement assistance to more than 30 Seattle bakery, dessert shop and grocery store partners.
Hodge and Kim are able to fund their free training, pay for their space and purchase equipment and ingredients through many different avenues, including:
- In-person pastry classes and corporate workshops
- Monthly curated pastry kits shipped nationally that include pre-measured, non-perishable ingredients and a recipe card
- Local pastry goody box pick-ups made by pastry students
- A soft serve window July through September (the rainbow peanut crunch is also sold separately at the window!)
So, how exactly does such a generous enterprise get built? Where do the people who build it come from before fusing food and social enterprise into something as meaningful as it is delicious?
Kim, who used to work on city policy focusing on gender and racial equity at Seattle City Council, found herself at the uber-popular local ice cream empire, Molly Moon’s. For six years, she helped start and run the Anna Banana Milk Fund nonprofit, which provides fresh milk to families in need, while also leading the company’s community relations, which grew to include social impact work.
Hodge, who attended the Culinary Institute of America’s Baking and Pastry Arts Program right out of college, says that when she entered the workforce, she discovered just how difficult it was to be in the pastry industry and make enough money to pay the bills.
“When I moved to Seattle, I wanted to re-immerse myself into pastry,” she says. “I worked at a small bakery here and moved on to Molly Moon’s. I was intrigued by the good pay and benefits, and became the head chef and manager of culinary operations, leading our many kitchens as well as the whole culinary team [for seven years].”
Why offer free pastry training?
Because Kim and Hodge worked together during hiring season at Molly Moon’s, they learned just how difficult it was to place someone in a kitchen who didn’t have experience particular to a specific culinary niche—in their case at the time it was ice cream.
“[In] busy working kitchens, you can’t just teach someone in a couple of days,” Hodge adds. “It takes time and practice [to hone] those skills. We discovered there was an opportunity to support individuals who had barriers to employment in the industry. We [wanted] education [to be] accessible and free… [so] we decided to create The Pastry Project.”
Kim adds that the pastry industry is competitive, which means there are often fewer positions for those interested.
“[It’s different than a cook in the kitchen, and] you generally need a lot more experience,” she says.
“We really focus on individuals who are passionate about pastry… who we believe will be successful and will graduate from the program… ” she adds. “We want to support people through mentorship and learning so they can start a career in the industry.”
The pair run one cohort a year, with eight students per cohort for five-and-a-half months, who get placed in jobs following their training. Typically, the duo receives close to 50 applicants for just eight positions.
Not only do they place students in jobs, they also let small baking and pastry startups with cost barriers use their space through their residency program, which is typically six months long. So far, they’ve housed some of Seattle’s most notable baking businesses, like Lady Grey (cakes), The Creamy Crow (Portuguese egg tarts), Tiny Bakes (a graduate of the program) and more.
And the community loves them. So much so that others want to join them. Thanks to their innovative approach to pastry education, they have also found ways to creatively align with area pastry businesses in ways that make it profitable for both parties.
“We do a lot of partnerships and collaborations with places we think are mission aligned,” Kim says, mentioning a partnership with King Arthur Flour where their students produced buns for Northwest Harvest, which supports local food banks.
Other collaborations included Dairy Farmers of Washington, With Warm Welcome—which focuses on Asian American and Pacific Islander (AAPI bakers)—and GroundUp, a Portland-based nut butter company focused on job training for women with barriers to employment.
Some of their soft serve collaborations bring in the desserts of local businesses and turn them into toppings and super-creative sundae designs, such as one with local macaron-focused patisserie, Lady Yum. This pop of color had purple vanilla soft serve, strawberry passion fruit dip, macaron crumbles and homemade passion fruit curd. Did people stand in line? Yes. They always do. It’s just one small part of the magic Kim and Hodge have created, and it’s the kind of magic that infiltrates the community in the best way—reminding people how delicious helping each other can really be.
“The goal of The Pastry Project is to reduce barriers to education and employment and we want those jobs to be amazing for people once they enter the workforce,” Hodge says. “Everything we do—baked products, classes and future things we sell, will be for that. Everything else is what feeds it. We’re here for the baking and pastry community. We want to be a neighbor, not competition.”
Photo courtesy of The Pastry Project
