A Look at the Daily Life of a Pastry Chef
It is hard to imagine a sweeter gig, literally, than working as a pastry chef. If you love making desserts, and you gravitate toward the creative side of the baking field, then perhaps becoming a pastry chef is the right move for your future.
There are several paths that you can take toward a successful pastry career, some of which include formal training, a degree or attendance at a culinary school.
Before you enroll into a pastry arts program, take a closer look at what a typical day for a pastry chef might look like. This can ensure that you are working towards the right lifestyle and career path for you.
An Early Start
While not necessary the case across the board, the majority of pastry chefs can expect an early start to their day. If you work in a bakery making pastries and desserts, then you will likely be there after the bread bakers, who might be expected to arrive hours before dawn.
However, since many people shop for desserts to take home during the day, you’ll need to be finished baking tarts, pies and cakes by the middle of the afternoon.
This, of course, means an early morning start most of the time. If you work as a pastry chef in a restaurant, then the only time the kitchen is free will likely be mornings before the lunch rush begins.
Baking Classic Pastries in Large Batches
When you imagine life as a pastry chef, you might picture the careful decoration of a single tart or piping ribbed lines of chocolate onto a donut. To start, however, you’ll likely be baking up big batches of classic pastries and desserts.
A bakery might go through 100 danishes before lunch or need 50 slices of cheesecake by the afternoon rush. Most desserts and baked goods will be made in big batches according to standard recipes, and there will be little room for experimentation on a daily basis.
Expressing Your Artistic Side
Working as a pastry chef is often described as the melding of science and art. While baking can be very scientific when it comes to exact temperatures and measurements, decorating your sweet treats can be a fantastic outlet for a creative person. Icing, piping, spreading frosting, creating fondant flowers and more can all be a part of your daily routine if you find a job as a pastry chef.
Admin, Prep, Cleaning and Recipe Creation
It is important to remember than in all but a few pastry chef positions, there is more to it than just baking and decorating. In a restaurant role, you might be responsible for planning desserts several weeks in advance and then ordering the ingredients needed to make each one.
You may need to price each dessert, or you might need to clean up your work station thoroughly after a day of baking. Of course, an ongoing part of the job will be tinkering with recipes and coming up with new flavor combinations and decoration ideas.
By taking a closer look at a typical work day for a pastry chef, you’ll be ready to decide whether this career route is right for your culinary ambition.
Career Opportunities for a Pastry Chef
In the world of the culinary arts, most professionals can be divided neatly into two categories: sweet and savory. Chefs who work in sweets and baking tend to be focused on the methodical, scientific side of carefully measuring out ingredients in order to craft perfect breads and cakes.
However, pastry chefs bridge the gap between creative and methodical by allowing for plenty of artistry in the creation of delicate and beautiful pastries.
By earning a degree in the baking arts, or in pastry in particular, you can become a pastry chef. Discover some of the employment opportunities that await pastry chefs and pick the most appealing path for your own career.
Entrepreneur
Many graduates with a culinary degree in pastry and the baking arts will opt to seek out a salaried position. However, others will decide to go into business for themselves. If you love making sweet treats and other baked goods, then opening up a small independent bakery, a cafe or a food truck could be the ideal career choice. You can bake the things you love the most, take control over your future and pocket a greater portion of the profits in the long run.
Bakery Employee
A large percentage of pastry arts graduates will go on to find work in a bakery. Their daily tasks often start before dawn and include mixing doughs, baking muffins and cakes, decorating beautiful desserts and cleaning down the kitchen at the end of the day.
You might work in a small bakery that focuses on cupcakes, or you could work in a large bakery in a grocery store that churns out thousands of danishes, donuts and bagels every day.
Dessert Chef in an Upscale Restaurant
The most upscale restaurants typically have their desserts made each day by an onsite pastry chef. Unlike many restaurant kitchen jobs, the role of dessert chef can be less stressful since most of the preparations are done in advance of the dinner rush.
You might head into the kitchen in the morning to bake several cakes and prepare beautiful puddings, and then they will be served and plated to guests later on in the day by other kitchen staff.
Wedding Cake Maker or Decorator
If your love of baking is all about the decorative element, then your degree and training can be used to make stunning wedding cakes. You might work for a wedding bakery that only makes cakes for upcoming celebrations, or you might work for a traditional bakery but be assigned to decorating the cakes once they have been baked.
Recipe Developer
Companies that sell traditional baking items like sugar, butter or flour often hire recipe developers to craft sweet treats made with their ingredients. I
n addition, mass-produced items like frozen pies and baked cookies are made thanks to full-time pastry chefs and bakers who are employed in laboratory kitchens. If you love experimenting in the kitchen, this career can be perfect.
If you want to become a pastry chef, you have plenty of options and a range of potential environments for employment in the field.
Explore your options at Cooking-Culinary-Arts-Schools.org
A Day in the Life of a Cup Cake Diva
If you’ve ever walked past a beautifully decorated bakery and thought about how wonderful it would be to work there, then you may have also thought about pursuing a career in the pastry arts. With a degree in baking or the pastry arts, you could be ready to work in a bakery, run your own cupcake store or operate a quaint pastry shop selling all sorts of sweet treats. Before committing to this career, step into the shoes of a cupcake diva and see what life is like for a pastry shop owner.
4 a.m. Getting to the Bakery
One thing that may surprise you is that for many employees in the baking industry, the day starts well before dawn. Although some cake and cupcake decorators have more flexibility, most bakery employees have to be at work a few hours before the morning rush arrives on their way to work.
That means as early as three or four in the morning! A typical day might start with mixing up batters for cakes, ensuring that the dough rises properly and then baking up sweet treats, savory doughs and more. Then, the cases will start to be filled with the final products, the lights might come on in the dining areas and the doors will open for customers to enter.
7 a.m. Doors Open and Customers Start Arriving
Between seven and eight in the morning is when most bakeries typically open up their doors to customers. This capitalizes on the morning rush when people are on their way to work and in the mood for a cup of coffee and a tasty baked good. For some bakeries, this is the busiest time of the day. For a cupcake diva, this is the time of day when customer service and interaction is most important, and most staff will work directly with customers rather than back in the kitchen until the rush subsides.
10 a.m. Creativity Strikes!
After the busiest time of day is over, cupcake divas and pastry shop owners can take some time to get creative in the kitchen. This might mean coming up with new flavor combinations or researching different ways of decorating cupcakes. This may also be the time when they work on custom orders for birthday parties or special events. They could get inspiration for their designs from nature, from the hobbies of the birthday girl or just from famous pieces of art.
2 p.m. Administrative Work
For the owners of a pastry shop, administrative work is an important aspect of the business. Instead of just clocking out when your shift is over, owners and managers will have to take inventory of supplies, order ingredients before they run out, schedule work shifts for employees and handle the payroll each week. Although pastry shop owners might be more interested in the creative side of this sweet industry, administrative tasks ensure that the company can stay in business and continue to churn out delicious cupcakes of all varieties.
If you’ve always wanted to be a cupcake diva, then running a bakery or a pastry shop could be the ideal career for you. Prepare for long days that start early in the morning, but look forward to opportunities for creativity, interacting with customers and enjoying what you do.