Smoke pours from a skillet at station four in Karen Ford’s classroom. Students desperate for a respite duck out of the door for a moment, but to no avail.

“It’s worse in the hallway,” was the refrain as they streamed back inside.

Others – not part of Ford’s comprehensive Advanced Nutrition and Wellness course, but curious to know the source of the acrid sensation drifting through the school – peer into the classroom and offer their thoughts.

“You’re burning chicken?” said an incredulous Kaiden Jennings. “How do you mess up chicken?”

Through it all, Ford calmly makes notes. The challenge on this day was for the four teams of students to prepare a recipe they had created from scratch to serve to judges.

They have one shot to get it right. And at three of the four stations, things were going well.

At one station, Abby Prater, Sydney Fetterhoff and Kimberly Rodriguez were calmly laying out the ingredients for bacon-wrapped chicken sandwiches. At another, a grilled chicken wrap was on the menu.

Away from the corner, Kendal Hilderman stood over the stove stirring steadily at an unfamiliar ingredient.

“How should it look?” she asked.

Raven Allen took the lead in crafting her team’s recipe – crispy mashed potato bowls filled like a shepherd’s pie. Her teammate was working choux pastry in simmering water.

“I don’t think it’s too difficult,” Allen said of the complex dish. “The pastry is different, but it helps to hold it all together.”

The idea started with a look through her grandmother’s trove of recipes. But Allen said there was a bit of “Chopped” to it, as well, referring to the Food Network show where chefs wing it from a basket of mystery ingredients.

Ford builds the class to this point. They started in January, learning which meats and fruits paired well, identifying the flavors imparted by herbs and spices and other nuances from a world of ingredients. Already they had picked up knife skills, food safety knowledge and nutritional information.

For this section of the class, she assigned students to four teams. Each team would develop a unique recipe, one that couldn’t be found through an online search.

“It’s hard in today’s work to develop your own recipe,” Ford acknowledged.

Ideas for classic dishes, spin offs and newly inspired creations exist by the hundreds of thousands on social media sites and the internet. The bacon wrapped chicken sandwich is a twist on a plate familiar to Kimberly Rodriguez.

“It’s like a family thing,” she said.

Ford’s guidelines started with the “no exact copying” edict. Students were asked to keep the price tag in mind, so no filet mignon or other expensive items. They also had to write out the recipe, with steps included, and put together a nutritional label.

For the past week or so, they were allowed to tweak the written recipe.

“It was challenging at first,” said Kaylin Wagner, who was preparing a grilled chicken wrap with Piper Higgins. “But once we got going, it all pieced together.”

On Wednesday it was time to cook – and for their finished dishes to be judged.

Ford graded the students on their kitchen skills and cooperation. The judges operated from a criteria that included such ephemerals as appearance, taste, aroma, originality and execution.

The group at station four came up with a more elaborate dish – Takis lime chicken, with the cuts of breast meat rolled in spicy tortilla chips that had been crushed coarsely – and Spanish-style rice.

They were gambling that the other teams would lean toward more timid palates. So their goal was to spice things up.

“Today is a one shot, and it’s being judged,” said Kaleigh Feigenspan.

The team got off to a rocky start. Staring at a pot of rapidly bubbling water on the stove, Joseph Mitchell encouraged Je’Von Mahaney to add the rice.

“It’s supposed to boil,” Mahaney said.

“It is boiling,” Mitchell responded.

But the crumbled chips encrusting the chicken begin to smolder and turn black. Smoke rose from the pan.

There was never a threat of fire. Through the laughter, the light hearted “you burned the chicken” accusations and the curious onlookers, the team tried to sort out a solution.

Fixing a dish on the fly is something that happens in every kitchen, even those overseen by the finest chefs.

And, Ford explained, while you may never again work with choux – or crushed up Takis, for that matter – “once you’ve done it, you have the skills.”