Our Food Editor Conquers Her Fears and Helps Bake for 700 Guests at the Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota

I’m bad at baking. Really bad. The only B grade I received in culinary school (many years ago) was for my baking and pastry class. I worked hard for that B, and while I was otherwise a straight A student, I celebrated.

Cooking is forgiving. Most mistakes are fixable. Add a bit of sugar or more liquid if a dish is too salty, call a dish “rustic” if it’s ugly and laugh if things go horribly wrong. Baking, however, requires enormous technical skill, like running a chemistry experiment, and you don’t know if you’ve messed up until you pull it out of the oven, many hours later. I’ve cried over a dessert disaster more times than I can count on my fingers and toes.

So what made me say yes when The Ritz-Carlton, Sarasota invited me to spend an afternoon in their pastry department back in April? Fascination, stubbornness and a touch of insanity.

At Sarasota’s Ritz-Carlton, pastry chef Chris Vitanza runs a nine-person team. The bakers are quiet and focused, but genuinely cheerful. They’re eager to help me learn, but in the dark about my inabilities. This week they’re preparing for an Easter buffet for nearly 700 guests. Vitanza says his team allots for an average of six bite-size pastries per guest—plus some overage in case anyone is feeling gluttonous. This week, they’re making 6,000 little bites, all while preparing desserts for the Ritz’s on-site restaurant, Jack Dusty, the hotel’s private Beach Club at Lido Beach, and the Golf Club in Lakewood Ranch.

I’m relieved when the first part of my baking tour mostly includes overseeing the baking team assemble a 150-pound chocolate Easter bunny that Vitanza says takes about 12 hours to put together over the course of several days. Chocolate is notoriously hard to work with, especially in Florida’s heat and humidity, and requires authoritative hands. I remind Vitanza that I’ve botched more than baked. I’m not touching that display.

Then someone hands me a tray of cupcakes and a pastry bag filled with buttercream frosting.  Turns out I’m pretty good at decorating. My chocolate cupcakes with vanilla buttercream are deemed “perfect,” although I’m not sure if the Ritz bakers scraped the frosting off and started over after I left. I allegedly “expertly” executed a chocolate chip cookie recipe, too, and I helped decorate hundreds of white chocolate seashells with aerosol spray pigment.

Ultimately, I left feeling on top of the world. I’ll still leave the home baking to my husband, but I’ve promised him my decorating chops anytime he asks. As far as a professional baking career? I’m happy to stay on the other side of the dessert buffet.

THE RITZ-CARLTON, SARASOTA | 1111 Ritz Carlton Drive, Sarasota, (941) 309-2000, marriott.com