Japanese Students Learn Sweet Secrets

A group of teenage culinary students from Japan visited Oxnard College last week, where master chef Joe Carbajal shared his secrets for creating sumptuous pastries.

The students from Kokusai Confectionery College in Japan got two hours of hands-on instruction in the college’s hotel and restaurant management kitchens.

Carbajal began with a basic lesson plan for creating shortcake, eclair paste and sweet dough, followed by demonstrations on how to knead pastry dough so that it rises properly and how to fill the pastries.

In keeping with Oxnard’s most prevalent fruit, the students created traditional strawberry shortcake, as well as strawberry and lemon pastries, cream puffs, eclairs and Danish puffs drizzled with chocolate. Other pastries were topped with butter and sifted powdered sugar.

Satomu Yamamura, advisor for Kokusai Business College Office of International and Exchange program at Oxnard College, said the students will spend eight days in the United States. Their stay will include culinary instruction at the college, stays with host families, dinner with Oxnard Mayor Manuel Lopez and their host families and a trip to Universal Studios in Los Angeles.

Officials from the Oxnard and Kokusai campuses have sought to strengthen the ties between the colleges since they became sister schools in 1990. In the past nine years, the college and the school have supported student exchange programs between the U.S. and Japan.