CHEF PROFILE
Pastry Chef Logan Barber
Two ingredients for one chef’s success
“My siblings used to come to me and put in their birthday cake order, and I would make it. It didn’t happen every year for all of them, but it happened enough that I just came to expect it—and I loved doing it for them,” Logan Barber shared. As the third oldest of his six siblings, making the family birthday cakes became one of his roles in his large family. He and some of his siblings took inspiration from the Cake Boss himself, Buddy Valastro. Spending time in front of the television together, they took in Buddy’s big personality and his chefs’ big imaginations. he said. “Ella Mae is the person who taught me how to pipe roses onto cakes and I still use the technique she taught me.”
Logan has fond memories of going through his great grand- mother’s recipes with his mom and siblings. His description of the three of them making homemade doughnuts with sweet glaze led Logan to reflect how he wished he saw his grandmother, Bernita, more often.
Logan’s desire to learn to bake professionally comes from a deep connection to his grandmother and her friend, who are both still alive today. “A lot of times when I went to visit my grandma in Michigan, we would also go visit Ella Mae who owned a bakery,” Hearing this narrative reinforced that our relationship with food is, many times, a reflection of our relationship with family. Logan’s loved ones have always supported his time in the kitchen. One of his fondest creations is a cake he made for his mom.
“I made the cake for my mom’s 49th birthday. She had a hard year that year, and I just really wanted to do something nice for her. It wasn’t that elaborate of a cake or difficult to make. It was a Texas sheet cake because that’s her favorite, but the way I decorated it and the message I wrote on it was meaningful to us,” Logan said.
It was Logan’s mom who gave him an autographed copy of Buddy Valastro’s book “Baking with the Cake Boss.” Logan laughed, “I was twelve. I still have it. When you flip through it you can see the recipes I made a lot; there’s cocoa powder stuck to one.” That year, Logan watched Cake Boss almost every day after school and on the weekends would try to emulate something he saw in the show. One of those recipes is Valastro’s chocolate cake recipe which Logan still uses today. He has, however, adapted it to his now mature taste and skills.
After baking and cooling it, he uses a pastry brush to infuse red wine into the cake, and then frosts it with a mocha cream frosting, a recipe he created.
Logan understands that food, care and community interconnect. Logan has a goal of having his own bakery by 2030. He will graduate from Fox Valley Technical College this December with an associate’s degree in Baking and Pastry Management and a technical diploma in Baking and Pastry Production, a program from which 15-20 students graduate per year. Although Logan excels at and enjoys all facets of his courses, he tends to gravitate to playing with types of cake and thinks he might want to eventually make wedding cakes.
Regardless of what his feature items will be, Logan emphasized that he wanted to offer affordable baked goods and that his future business would also foster a relationship with food pantries in the area.
Logan’s desire to give back to the community is probably due to an innate kindness, but he also stressed how many people helped him to find his way as he was growing up.
“When I was in middle school, I didn’t like going to lunch. I didn’t have a lot of friends. I would just wander the halls. I ended up going to the office and hanging out with Mrs. Pekarski who was the middle school secretary. I actually made her retirement cake, and we have just always kept in touch.”
“I USED TO BE PETRIFIED AT EVEN THE THOUGHT OF PUBLIC SPEAKING, NOW I FEEL LIKE I COULD DO THAT. NO PROBLEM … THAT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING IN A KITCHEN. IF COMMUNICATION WITH JUST ONE PERSON BREAKS DOWN, EVERYTHING CAN BREAK DOWN PRETTY QUICKLY. THINGS MOVE SO QUICKLY IN A KITCHEN.”
— Logan Barber
When Logan graduated from Mosinee High School in 2020, he enrolled in classes in Northcentral Technical College (NTC) in Wausau to fulfill his general education requirements. He then took a year off because he didn’t know what he wanted to do. NTC offers a culinary degree, but Logan knew he didn’t want to pursue that aspect of the food industry. “I took a lot of pushback for leaving NTC because people told me ‘you will never go back now,’ but I told myself I would go back in a year.”
It was that middle school secretary who helped hold him to his promise. In the summer of 2022, she told him, “Okay, let’s start looking for schools for you to go to.” Their first Google search of pastry chef schools led them to the technical school program in Appleton. A leader at Logan’s church drove him to Appleton that August for a visit. Logan has immense gratitude for his supporters. “I wasn’t very good at school. School wasn’t my thing. But Mrs. Pekarski, Mrs. Dul, who was my choir teacher, and my two Family and Consumer Education teachers in high school always believed in me. I want to be that for someone. That’s important to me.”
Logan sure doesn’t struggle in school now. In fact, he recently earneda silver medal in the American Culinary Federation (ACF) Fox Valley Chapter competition, in which four ACF judges evaluated and scored 30 entries submitted by students from various schools. In his Plated Desserts course, one of the last classes required before earning an associate’s degree, the students were told that they could take a final test which would contribute to their grade or they could enter this particular competition and the judge’s ratings would determine their final grade. Obviously, the first option would be the safer bet, but Logan and some of his classmates bet on themselves. The contest was administered by the American Culinary Foundation, founded in 1929, which trains and certifies chefs to judge culinary competitions. Logan spent hours practicing both at school and at his apartment. Chef Gina Schomaker, one of his instructors, allowed him to take small kitchen appliances home to use. It’s imperative to practice because of timing constraints.
“You can’t go over the time because it looks like you didn’t practice enough or you don’t have the techniques down,” Logan explained. “And you can’t finish with too much time left because then it seems like you could have created a more challenging plate.”
Logan competed in the Plated Desserts category, which required a plated dessert encompassing nine components. Once the timer started, students had fifteen minutes to set up—including setting the oven temperature, getting needed items in the cooler and arranging necessary tools. Then students get 90 minutes to prepare the dish followed by 10 minutes to plate.
“It was extra nerve racking because we were live streamed, and sometimes a judge would come and stand next to us as we were working,” Logan stated. His final plate featured a dome with dark mocha mousse and orange curd in the center, then dipped in Magic Shell to give it a crunch effect. The dessert was topped with almond confit, candied almonds, lavender ice cream, raspberry caramel sauce, whipped cream and candied kumquat. Out of the ten participants in this category, Logan earned a silver.
While Logan excels at time management and technique in the kitchen, he finds working with sugar challenging. “Sugar work takes a lot of practice,” he said. “It involves being very particular with temperature and blowing sugar to make a shape is really tricky.” This is not to say he doesn’t plan on continuing to work with sugar. In contrast to how Logan described himself in high school, Logan is indeed a fantastic student at age 23. He demonstrates impressive skill, curiosity and drive when things are difficult. In his chocolates course, which again requires working with various temperatures as a student shapes and molds, Logan felt challenged.
“At one point, we had to make a 12-inch chocolate structure and decorate it with other chocolate pieces. I thought I would fail, but I got I have had the pleasure of touring the program before, and Fox Valley Tech expects a lot out of their students. It’s an impressive place to learn. Logan credits much of his achievement to his knowledgeable and kind professors. And, while Logan has learned a lot about pastry and baking, he believes that what he has learned most is confidence and the ability to guide and work with others.
“I used to be petrified at even the thought of public speaking,” Logan said. “Now I feel like I could do that. No problem. And I can organize, come up with a plan, and work with others. That is the most important thing in a kitchen. If communication with just one person breaks down, everything can break down pretty quickly. Things move so quickly in a kitchen.”
FVTC requires students to take a course called Baking and Pastry Ops. In the level two class, each student is assigned a week to lead a team and sell their products in the FVTC cafeteria or the Connections Bakery on campus. In addition to many other items, team leaders are expected to have their team prepare two types of scones, muffins, turnovers, and cookies.
Logan’s team expected him to hand them recipes featuring variations of his four favorite ingredients—-coffee, chocolate, red wine and mint—-but he surprised them. He wanted to play with new flavors. The spinach and artichoke turnover and the spiced bourbon madelines his team baked sold quickly, and he and his team received great feedback.
In December, at his graduation party, Logan will pose among a display of his work. No doubt he will be sending a graduation photo to Mrs. Pekarski, that school secretary who made a young man keep his promise to himself.
