Being the No. 1 high school baker in the state is easy as pie for Genevieve Boushey.

The 18-year-old Oak Harbor High School senior took top honors at a commercial baking competition in Tacoma last month, and she’s slated to represent Washington at a national competition in Louisville, Kentucky in June.

She’s part of the high school’s highly regarded culinary program, which includes a catering company and a powerhouse competitive team.

The baking competition required her to decorate a cake and bake a selection of standard baked goods including fluffy tea biscuits, sugar cookies and apple pie. The simplicity of the items levels the playing field and leaves no room to hide.

“If you mess up one thing, they can see it,” she said.

In fact, the competition wasn’t a cake walk. Boushey was competing against vocational schools in which students are almost solely focused on culinary arts.

Boushey started baking at her mother’s knee. At age 7 she baked her first pie — apple. The dough was overworked. The ratios were off. She didn’t follow the recipe.

By the time she entered the beginner’s class last year taught by chef Mary Arthur, she’d mastered pie and a lot more.

“You get students who take the class and discover a love for it,” Arthur said. “She knew this is what she wanted to do.”

Boushey jokes that she tried to bribe the chef with little home-baked goodies.

“I’m not going to lie,” she said.

“I was a suck up.”

But chef Arthur said that was completely unnecessary. Her charge has the talent and, more importantly, the drive to be successful. In particular, Boushey displays excellent time management and organization.

Those skills are essential for culinary professionals.

“I can teach the skills, but I can’t teach them the passion,” Arthur said.

Boushey’s dream is to become a chef and run her own restaurant or bakery. She’s already off and running. She works 30 hours a week as a line cook at Seabolt’s Smoke House while maintaining a 3.2 GPA.

Among her classmates, she’s known as the “Queen of Croissant.” She’s already been accepted early entry with a partial scholarship to the prestigious Culinary Institute of America in New York.

“This is my passion,” she said. “I just want to live out my dream.”

Anyone who would like to help Boushey make the trip to nationals can donate to the Oak Harbor Educational Foundation, attention Culinary Arts, P.O. Box 1801, Oak Harbor, WA 98277.