Betsy LaSorella

The Path

At Cincinnati State, Betsy LaSorella serves as professor and Program Chair in the Pastry Arts program and professor in the culinary arts department. In pastry education, timing, repetition, and control carry the same weight as theory; her work sits where those skills are taught, tested, and carried into the next generation of kitchens. The role asks for more than instruction alone. It also requires shaping curriculum, setting standards, and keeping students working inside the discipline that pastry demands.

The Work Today

Pastry Arts instruction is a precise line of work: it asks for consistency, patience, and a close read on details that can change a result by degrees and grams. In that setting, Betsy LaSorella’s teaching is not limited to demonstration. It is also about building habits around rigor, repetition, and confidence so students understand how technique holds up under pressure. She said she wanted “to bring more attention to Cincinnati State and our Pastry program, and I also wanted to inspire our students to compete themselves.” That aim links program visibility with student readiness, and it places competition within the same frame as instruction: a place where skills are checked, sharpened, and made public.

In Their Words “I wanted to bring more attention to Cincinnati State and our Pastry program, and I also wanted to inspire our students to compete themselves.” “There’s no better way for a culinarian to hone their craft than putting their skills and knowledge to the test in a competitive format.” Taken together, those remarks describe a teaching philosophy built on exposure and pressure. Competition is treated as part of the craft, not separate from it: a setting where technique has to hold, where knowledge has to transfer, and where repetition becomes performance. For LaSorella, the classroom and the competition table sit on the same continuum of practice.

Acclaim

Regional Pastry Chef of the Year, Northeast Regional competition is the recognition attached to Betsy LaSorella’s work. It places her inside the competitive pastry field she encourages students to enter, and it aligns with the standards she brings to Cincinnati State. The honor reads as confirmation of a practice rooted in discipline and measured against peer-level expectations.