As a little girl, Sofia Pena (’25) would often gaze, enthralled, at the scenes in her family’s kitchen: her madre and tías talking and moving to the lively guitars, violins, and trumpets of ranchera while preparing ingredients for bistec, sopes, and mole. These sounds, smells, and passion of her family’s cooking instilled in Pena a love of food, but more specifically, the preparation of food. 

Too young to cook on her own, Pena volunteered for the simpler tasks in the kitchen — folding tamales, preparing pozole, and watching over the albondigas soup. 

Even then, Pena understood the power of cooking.

“[Cooking] is a way to show love without having to say it,” Pena said.

As Pena grew older (and tall enough to reach the counters), her responsibilities in the kitchen increased. She graduated from assisting her mother, Veronica, by flipping tortillas, stirring beans, and cutting produce, to cooking chili relleno and enchiladas beside her. It was the side-by-side preparation of family favorites that forged a bond between mother and daughter. But while Pena and her mother cook in tandem in the kitchen — Pena chopping lettuce, her mother keeping a watchful eye on the homemade taquitos —  Pena is still a student, carefully watching her mother to learn, to improve.

“My mom was my first teacher in the kitchen,” Pena said. “She is also my biggest critic.”

Veronica often stops Pena mid-recipe to correct errors and to teach her daughter better, more efficient ways to prepare food. 

“[Sofia] has the urge to learn, and when you’re teaching someone who wants to learn, you can see how much they enjoy it,” Veronica Pena said.

But like the best of chefs, Sofia Pena isn’t just mimicking the recipes her mother has mastered, but seeking to make them her own.

“Whatever I teach her, she just makes it her own by expanding it,” Veronica Pena said. “She even taught herself new skills. I see her, and I’m like, ‘I never taught you that!’”

However, as much as Pena enjoys cooking savory dishes, it’s baking pastries and cakes she loves most.

The pivot from savory to sweet was partly due to Pena’s fascination with competition baking shows like Cupcake Wars and The Great British Bake Off (where “everything just looks so pretty and perfect,” Pena said). 

But the main reason for embracing sugary concoctions was her tia Rocial Davis’s passion for baking.

Davis, in support of Pena’s new interest, purchased supplies for her sobrina, including piping tips and bags, parchment paper, cake pans, and stencils.

Davis also took Pena on trips to bakeries and cafés where they would indulge in sweet treats, further fueling Pena’s passion for the craft. The environment — the colorful pastries and cakes, the smells of baking — inspired Pena to create her own delicacies to “show [her] love and appreciation for loved ones.”

Carla Hall, a contestant on the competition show Top Chef, said of baking: “The biggest challenge of being a pastry chef is that, unlike other types of chefs, you can’t throw things together at a farmer’s market. When you’re working with baking powder and a formula, you have to be exact. If not, things can go wrong.”

Pena’s first foray into baking was filled with “wrong,” trial and (mostly) error as she experimented with various recipes she bookmarked on Pinterest.

“I honestly started to doubt if I was a good baker or not because of all the mistakes I’d make and all the things that would go in the trash,” Pena said. 

Despite the initial failures, Pena’s older sister, Chloe Pena, encouraged Sofia to stick with it, to continue to pursue her growing love for baking.

“I kept going, and once I found my true passion, I couldn’t stop,” Pena said. 

Pena’s ninth-grade year at BOHS was another turning point. 

Out of the six career pathways at BOHS, Pena chose the Food Service and Hospitality pathway. (A perfect fit, given her family’s background in catering and cooking for small parties.) 

It was also during her freshman year that Pena met Janet Steinmetz, culinary teacher and BOHS’s 2024 Teacher of the Year.

Pena was an eager learner in Steinmetz’s Culinary I class, always quick to ask questions and receptive to Steinmetz’s encouragement to experiment and tweak recipes. 

It was when Steinmetz suggested that Pena compete in a culinary competition that the culinary student’s career took off.

During Pena’s four years of high school, she has competed in all of the Family, Career, and Community Leaders of America (FCCLA) Club’s Students Taking Action with Recognition (STAR) Regional competitions, where Pena has placed first in the wedding cakes, breads, and patisserie categories, and earned the “Best of Show” award during her freshman and senior years. (Pena’s favorite theme was Marie Antoinette and the Palace of Versailles, for which she created miniature cakes, pavlova, swiss rolls, Paris-Brest, croquembouche, and palmiers.)  

This year, her final year in FCCLA, Pena sought to push herself even further, striving to “go big or go home.” “Going big” to Pena meant vintage wedding cakes. 

In FCCLA, wedding cakes are considered to be the most competitive and challenging category, partly because it’s the only category based on appearance and decoration, rather than baking. In fact, styrofoam cakes are used as substitutes for baked cakes. 

At the STAR Regional Competition Feb. 8, 2025, Pena decided, as a farewell to four years of competition, to tackle her biggest challenge to date: a four-tier cake.

Pena, however, faced a dilemma.

“I couldn’t really figure out what I wanted my cake to look like,” Pena said. “I would look on Pinterest and think, That’s not enough.”

She also scoured her mom’s cookbooks and even TikTok, for inspiration.

But then, an epiphany. While growing up, Pena received many comments from her family regarding her and her abuela’s many similarities, from the two of them being the shortest in the family, and their shared interests of accessorizing and traveling.

Already familiar with the imagery of her grandmother’s 1950s wedding, Pena decided to incorporate its details into her cake, which she named, “Antiguo Amor” (which translates to “ancient love”).

Having missed the opportunity to meet her grandmother, who passed away before Pena was born, Pena wanted the creation to serve as a tribute. 

To decorate the cake, Pena used her abuela’s original lace veil and crown, a vintage wedding cake topper, photos of the wedding, and a painting of her abuelos that her abuela’s sister created. 

Other challenges confronting Pena included the cake’s size (she needed 30 pounds of fondant for the cake), and cost (the fondant alone cost around $200, which Steinmetz donated).

The cake took 16 hours to complete.

“I probably started over six to ten times because [the cake] just wasn’t perfect to me,” Pena said

When completed, the cake numbered four tiers; weighed over 80 pounds (the base alone was 65 pounds, and stood four-feet tall. To decorate the cake, Pena used a step stool.

Pena’s effort to create a tribute to her grandmother earned Pena first place in the wedding cake category, and “Best in Show” overall. 

Steinmetz said of Pena, whom the veteran culinary teacher has mentored for four years, “Sofia embraced the opportunity to gain experience and continue learning. She handled the challenge with grace, maintaining a positive attitude and continuously striving to improve, whether in class, competitions, or her work.”   

Currently, Pena works at North Orange County’s Elisa Marie Baking Co. as an assistant baker. To supplement that income, she sells her own baked goods and pastries through her Instagram account.

Pena continues to be inspired by the love of her family, and its long history with cooking, from traditional Mexican favorites to other delicacies.

“Watching her expand her skills on her own, and enjoying Culinary [classes] and participating in FCCLA has been amazing to watch,” Veronica Pena said. “We are so proud of her.”