The Baking Coach and Recipes 4 Learning, founded by Lisa Basini are two co-operated companies located in Huntington. Both businesses teach people of all ages and abilities different baking skills, leading to life-changing opportunities.
Basini (pictured below) is a professionally trained pastry chef and graduate of the culinary academy of Syosset. Her chef’s coat became a second skin after her time in school. While deciding what she’d do with her newly honed skills, she dreamed of the idea for The Baking Coach, literally.
“I had a dream of a product line and I saw the name ‘The Baking Coach,’ Basini, Baking Coach owner and president of its sister company, Recipes 4 Learning, told The Messenger. Her business quickly came together soon after that with a supportive family backing her every step of the way.
The Baking Coach’s mission is to help the “in-between audience” of people who want to bake, but are already professionals in another industry. “Those who aren’t going to do this as a career path, but just want to impress family and friends, make a decent birthday cake, maybe decorate a cake super nice.”
Recipes 4 Learning is Lisa’s second entrepreneurial endeavor, and which coincides with The Baking Coach. It connects our community by providing different services to different groups of people. For young students, they provide hands-on learning workshops with visual lessons like “Cookie Fractions.”
Cookie Fractions is a widely loved program for primary school students where math lessons are taught via sweet cookies. They are open to field trips, in-school lessons, home school lessons, etcetera.
For young adults with different abilities, they provide supportive employment opportunities and vocational training.
Basini explained, “I realized that there was a great need for a continuation of job skill training after high school, after they age out at 21, so I founded a not-for-profit called Recipes 4 Learning,” referring to the need for continuous training for young adults with different abilities after finishing high school programs and before joining the workforce.
The not-for-profit connects with local high schools to involve themselves in Work Based Learning programs for differently abled students. Work Based Learning programs introduce students with different abilities to hyper focused training in professional workplace industries.
In Commack High School’s Young Adult Work Based Learning Program, students learn life skills and professional skills to prepare them for life after graduation.
These students visit the Huntington location of The Baking Coach and Recipes 4 Learning to build baking kits for consumers. This allows students to learn portioning and measuring ingredients, following recipes and sorting products. All are skills that aid in students’ employability and prepare them to become self-sufficient well beyond the classroom.
Both companies then employ young adults with different abilities after this transition program.
The Baking Coach is now opening a commercial kitchen right here in Brookhaven’s own backyard. Opening on August 1 in the Bellport outlets, The Baking Coach will be accessible to people of all ages and abilities. They seek local schools to participate in the work-based learning program with Recipes 4 Learning, which will move into Bellport in September.
320 Broadway Greenlawn
Huntington, NY 11743
[email protected] • Tel: 631-624-6113
[email protected] • Tel: 631-543-8608
