Briana Bridges grew up in kitchens – her mother's, her grandmother's and her aunts' – and loved the sights, sounds and smells of baking. But she never considered making it a career.

After high school, Bridges was working long, sometimes late-night, shifts in retail, which she found to be physically and emotional draining. As a pick-me-up, she started baking batches of chocolate chip cookies and handing them out to neighbors and co-workers. When someone offered to pay her for the cookies, a light bulb went off.

"I was pretty excited and thought maybe this could grow into something," she said, adding that she had considered nursing school but decided it wasn't a good fit. "Doing something I love and making money from it would be a dream."

So, she printed up a batch of business cards and started attending every farmers market and community event she could to build her business by word of (cookie-filled) mouths. But she realized baking only cookies limited the growth potential for her business, so she enrolled in Wake Tech's non-degree Certified Fundamental Beginners Baking & Pastry Arts course.

"I wanted to expand my baking skills, and I wanted certifications to help expand my business," she said.

Bridges says that, even after years of baking, she had trouble producing pies and cakes as she advanced through the course. A pie "looked so confused that it almost needed counseling," she says, while her first layer cake resembled the Leaning Tower of Pisa.

"Every kitchen flop came with a lesson, and my classmates kept the energy high," she said. "We hyped each other up and found joy in the chaos."

Her classmates were among the highlights of the course, Bridges says, noting that they kept her motivated though the various hand-on, teamwork-oriented tasks.

Instructor Lisa Hansen said Bridges is too critical of her work in the class, calling her "a dedicated student."

"She was always focused on doing every task well, holding herself to a high standard and striving for perfection," Hansen said.

Sameer Pawa, who heads up Wake Tech's non-degree hospitality training programs, says that attitude is common among non-degree students.

"We never know who we're going to get in our classes, from 18-year-olds trying to figure things out to senior citizens," Pawa said. "Many have a fire inside them but don't have two years to get a degree. We give them enough of a foundation to eventually get to that level."

Bridges ended the course with a Certified Fundamentals Pastry Chef certification from the American Culinary Federation and a ServSafe food-handling certification from the National Restaurant Association Educational Foundation.

She is putting aside money to purchase a food cart that she can take to community events to sell her baked goods and eventually hopes to open a bricks-and-mortar bakery. She's looking at courses and counseling offered through Wake Tech's Entrepreneurship & Small Business Center to help guide her growth.

"I want to say I started at the bottom and went to the top by myself," she said.