Erin Reed was two years into earning a degree in hospitality management at Indiana University of Pennsylvania in the mid-aughts before realizing a regular undergraduate degree program just wasn’t her cup of tea.
What she did love, however, was cooking.
So in 2006, after discovering IUP also boasted an Academy of Culinary Arts program, she made a change. And two years later, she earned certificates in culinary arts and advanced baking and pastry arts.
Smitten with the fine dining cuisine and plated desserts she helped prepare during an externship at The Broadmoor in Colorado Springs, Colo., Reed went on to work as a pastry chef in a slew of restaurants in Philadelphia and Washington, D.C., including Blue Duck Tavern, a Michelin-starred restaurant in Georgetown, before returning to IUP as a chef instructor in 2018.
Her passion for the craft and expertise of creating awe-inspiring desserts and other baked goods hasn’t just proved a source of inspiration for the students she now instructs at her alma mater (from which she also holds a degree in hospitality management alongside master’s degrees in educational/instructional technology and education).
Last month, it helped the Mifflinburg native win the American Culinary Federation’s highest honor: 2024 Pastry Chef of the Year.
In March, the 38-year-old culinary educator competed in ACF’s Northeast Regional Competition in Buffalo, N.Y. She won, which qualified her to compete for Pastry Chef of the Year at the professional organization’s national conference July 16 in Phoenix, Ariz. She was named gold medalist and winner of the competition.
It was “very rewarding” to have judges who are some of the best in their field recognize her hard work, Reed said.
“I felt like I had a pretty good idea that I was [going to win] just based on remarks from the judges, but you never want to get too sure of yourself.
“I was not sure I was gonna get a gold medal. I hoped, but I wasn't sure.”
The timed competition wasn’t exactly like what you see on Food Network, Reed said.
She competed for the title against two other regional chefs. Each was given a list of ingredients in June that they would use during the competition. This allowed Reed to practice five or six time creating the two plated desserts that won her gold, a cold peach-ricot rare cheesecake — rare means it's not baked — and a warm Illanka chocolate soufflé tart.
Judges’ scores, Reed noted, take into consideration more than just the desserts’ appearance and taste.
“Each dessert needed to have a handcrafted ornament of some kind, so it was pretty specific,” she explained.
Judges also assessed the chefs’ organization.
“They want to see you working clean. They want to see you working under strict guidelines of sanitation. All of that goes into your score,” Reed said,
While knowing the ingredient list beforehand was a perk, competitors were responsible for providing all of the ingredients and materials needed to prepare their desserts. That meant Reed had to carefully transport all of the necessary materials from her home in Punxsutawney to Phoenix — something she couldn’t have done without the help of two of her close friends, Genna Chakot and Kala Vargo, who helped check Reed’s multiple bags at the airport and also curated social media posts for the chef so others could follow along during the competition.
A family consumer sciences teacher for the Indiana Area School District, Chakot met Reed at IUP around 2009, when they were both finishing their undergraduate degrees. She became one of Reed’s students when she entered the Academy of Culinary Arts last year. She was so professional, Chakot said, no one in the class even realized they knew each other outside of the classroom.
Over the last 15 years, Chakot said she has been in awe of Reed’s career. And after traveling with her to Buffalo in March to the regional competition and again to Phoenix for nationals, she couldn’t be more proud of Reed’s resiliency.
“I know how much time and effort she put into this competition, how much energy,” Chakot said. “Literally, blood, sweat and tears went into this competition, so it was really emotional, and it was an honor to be with her.”
While Chakot was a friend-turned-student, Vargo, the culinary admissions counselor at IUP, was a student-turned-friend to Reed. When Vargo began at the Academy of Culinary Arts in 2019, Reed was her instructor. She quickly became a role model, then a professional colleague and then a friend.
Something unique to Reed’s culinary art is the way she naturally dyes foods and desserts using an ingredient already in the dish, she said.
The gala where Reed was announced the winner, Chakot added, was mind-blowing.
“It was a bigger experience than I had expected, but I had no doubt in my mind that Erin would get gold. She worked really hard for this,” she said.
“She’ll call herself a super smeller, but her ability to put flavors together is unlike anything I’ve ever seen before. I honestly think that that’s a gift from God that she has.”
“These competitions, they are created in a way that you have to think, you have to be creative, but you also have to be meticulous,” Vargo agreed. “And that's how her work always is.... I just kind of knew from the start that she had it in the bag.”
Andrew Nutter, assistant professor of culinary arts at IUP, said Reed was in his first-ever class at IUP in 2006. After following her career, Nutter spent several years recruiting Reed to return to IUP to teach. Six years later, she is a chef instructor working toward tenure at her alma mater.
“She’s done an amazing job for us [at IUP], and her insight and technique and vision and planning and menus and flavor, it’s just unbelievable,” Nutter said. “Which probably has a lot to do with why she actually won the competition, because her work is pretty flawless.”
Looking back on her career, Reed said one of her favorite and most rewarding memories (aside from the time she got to cook lunch in the White House) was being twice nominated for Pastry Chef of the Year by the Restaurant Association of Metropolitan Washington.
“I never won, so I feel like I kind of redeemed myself in winning this competition,” she said.
Allie Miller (allie.l.mill@gmail.com) is a freelance journalist living in New Stanton.
First Published: August 7, 2024, 9:30 a.m.
Updated: August 8, 2024, 3:36 p.m.
