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 1
The Baking Profession

AFTER READING THIS CHAPTER, YOU SHOULD BE ABLE TO:

1. Describe the major events in the history of baking, from prehistoric times to the present.
2. Describe various types of baking and pastry careers and the attitudes needed to be
successful in them.

BAKING IS ONE of the oldest occupations of the human race. Since early prehistoric

human beings made the transition from nomadic hunters to settled gatherers and

farmers, grains have been the most important foods to sustain human life, often

nearly the only foods. The profession that today includes baking artisan sour-

dough breads and assembling elegant pastries and desserts began thousands of

years ago with the harvesting of wild grass seeds and the grinding of those seeds

between stones.

Today, the professions of baker and pastry chef are growing quickly and changing

rapidly. Thousands of skilled people are needed every year. Baking offers ambi-

tious men and women the opportunity to find satisfying work in an industry that

is both challenging and rewarding.

3
4 C h a p t e r 1 The Baking Profession

Before you start your practical studies, which are covered in this book, it is good to first
learn a little about the profession you are entering. Therefore, this chapter gives you a
brief overview of baking professions, including how they got to where they are today.

BAKING: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND

GRAINS HAVE BEEN the most important staple foods in the human diet since prehistoric times,
so it is only a slight exaggeration to say that baking is almost as old as the human race.

The First Grain Foods

Before human beings learned to plant, they gathered wild foods. The seeds of various wild
grasses, the ancestors of modern grains, were rich in nutrients and valued by prehistoric peoples
as important foods. These seeds, unlike modern grains, had husks that clung tightly to them.
People learned that by toasting the seeds, probably on hot rocks, they could loosen the husks
and then remove them by beating the seeds with wooden tools.
The early development of grain foods took place mostly in the eastern Mediterranean
regions, where, it seems, wild grains were especially abundant.
Few cooking utensils were in use at this point in human history, so it is probable that the
earliest grain preparation involved toasting dry grains, pounding them to a meal with rocks, and
mixing the meal to a paste with water. The grains had already been cooked by toasting them, to
remove the husks, so the paste needed no further cooking. Later, it was discovered that some of
this paste, if laid on a hot stone next to a fire, turned into a flatbread that was a little more appe-
tizing than the plain paste. Unleavened flatbreads, such as tortillas, are still important foods in
many cultures. Unleavened flatbreads made from grain pastes are the first stage in the develop-
ment of breads as we know them.
To understand how breads evolved, you must also understand a little about how grains
developed. As you will learn in Chapter 4, modern yeast breads depend on a combination of cer-
tain proteins to give them their structure. For all practical purposes, only wheat and its relatives
contain enough of these proteins, which form an elastic substance called gluten. A few other
grains also contain gluten proteins, but they do not form as strong a structure as wheat gluten.
Further, the proteins must be raw in order to form gluten. Because the earliest wild grains
had to be heated to free them from their husks, they could be used only to make grain pastes or
porridges, not true breads. Over time, prehistoric people learned to plant seeds; eventually, they
planted only seeds of plants whose seeds were easiest to process. As a result, hybrid varieties
emerged whose husks could be removed without heating the grains. Without this advancement,
modern breads could not have come about.

Ancient Leavened Breads

A grain paste left to stand for a time sooner or later collects wild yeasts (microscopic organisms
that produce carbon dioxide gas) from the air, and begins to ferment. This was, no doubt, the
beginning of leavened (or raised) bread, although for most of human history the presence of yeast
was mostly accidental. Eventually, people learned they could save a small part of the current
day’s dough to leaven the next day’s batch.
Small flat or mounded cakes made of a grain paste, whether leavened or unleavened, could
be cooked on a hot rock or other hot, flat surface, or they could be covered and set near a fire or
in the embers of a fire. The ancient Egyptians developed the art of cooking leavened doughs in
molds—the first loaf pans. The molds were heated and then filled with dough, covered, and
stacked in a heated chamber. These were perhaps the first mass-produced breads. Breads made
from wheat flour were costly and so affordable for only the wealthy. Most people ate bread made
from barley and other grains.
By the time of the ancient Greeks, about 500 or 600 BCE, true enclosed ovens were in use.
These ovens were preheated by building a fire inside them. They had a door in the front that could
be closed, so they could be loaded and unloaded without losing much heat.
 BAKING: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 5

Still, for the most part, the breads baked in these ovens were nothing more than cakes of
baked grain pastes mixed with a little of the paste from the day before to supply wild yeasts for
leavening. Such flat or slightly mounded breads were called maza. Maza, especially those made
of barley, were the staple food of the time. In fact, in ancient Greece, all foods were divided into
two categories, maza and opson, meaning things eaten with maza. Opson included vegetables,
cheese, fish, meat, or anything else except bread. Often the opson was placed on top of the flat
bread, forming the ancestors of modern pizzas.
Writings from ancient Greece describe as many as 80 kinds of bread and other baked grain
products originated by professional bakers. Some of these could be called true breads, rather
than flatbreads or maza, because they were made with kneaded doughs containing wheat flour,
which provided gluten proteins.
Several centuries later, the ancient Romans were slow to develop breads. Not until master
bakers arrived from Greece did grain foods advance much beyond porridges and simple flat-
breads. By the latter period of the Roman Empire, however, baking was an important industry.
Bakeshops were often run by immigrant Greeks.
An important innovation in Roman baking was introduced by the Gauls, a European peo-
ple who had been conquered by the Romans. The Gauls, the ancestors of the modern French,
had invented beer making. They discovered that adding the froth from beer to bread dough
made especially light, well-leavened breads. The froth contained yeast from beer fermenta-
tion, so this process marked the beginning of the use of a controlled yeast source for making
bread doughs.
Many of the products made by Roman bakers contained quantities of honey and oil, so these
foods might more properly be called pastries rather than breads. That the primary fat available
was oil placed a limit on the kinds of pastries that could be made, however. Only a solid fat such
as butter enables the pastry maker to produce the kinds of stiff doughs we are familiar with today,
such as pie doughs and short pastries.

Baking in the Middle Ages

After the collapse of the Roman Empire, baking as a profession almost disappeared. Not until the
latter part of the Middle Ages did baking and pastry making begin to reappear as important pro-
fessions in the service of the nobility. Bread baking continued to be performed by professional
bakers, not homemakers, because it required ovens that needed almost constant tending. And
because of the risk of fire, baking ovens were usually separated from other buildings, and often
outside city walls.
In much of Europe, tending ovens and making bread dough were separate operations. The
oven tender maintained the oven, heated it properly, and supervised the baking of the loaves
that were brought to him. In early years, the oven may not have been near the workshops of the
bakers, and one oven typically served the needs of several bakers. It is interesting to note that in
many bakeries today, especially in the larger ones, this division of labor still exists. The chef who
tends the ovens bakes the proofed breads and other products that are brought to him or her and
may not have any part in the mixing and makeup of these products.
Throughout the Middle Ages, one of the bread maker’s tasks was sifting, or bolting, the
whole-grain flour that was brought to him by customers. Sifting with coarse sieves removed only
part of the bran, while sifting with finer sieves removed most or all of the bran and made whiter
flour. More of the grain is removed to make white flour, so the yield was lower and, thus, white
bread was more expensive, putting it out of reach of ordinary people. Not until around 1650 CE
did bakers start buying sifted flour from mills.
Because bread was the most important food of the time, many laws were passed during this
period to regulate production factors such as bolting yields, bread ingredients, and loaf sizes. It
was also in the Middle Ages that bakers and pastry chefs in France formed guilds to protect and
advance their art. Regulations prohibited all but certified bakers from baking bread for sale, and
the guilds had the power to limit certification to their own members. The guilds, as well as the
apprenticeship system, which was well established by the sixteenth century, also provided a way
to pass the knowledge of the baker’s trade from generation to generation.
To become master bakers, workers had to go through a course of apprenticeship and obtain
a certificate stating they had gained the necessary skills. Certified master bakers could then set
up their own shops. Master bakers were assisted by apprentices, who were learning the trade and
6 C h a p t e r 1 The Baking Profession

so were not paid, and by journeymen, who were paid servants and who may have completed an
apprenticeship but had not gained a master baker’s certificate.

Sugar and Pastry Making

Bakers also made cakes from doughs or batters containing honey or other sweet ingredients,
such as dried fruits. Many of these items had religious significance and were baked only for spe-
cial occasions, such as the Twelfth Night cakes baked after Christmas. Such products nearly
always had a dense texture, unlike the light confections we call cakes today. Nonsweetened pas-
try doughs were also made for such products as meat pies.
In the 1400s, pastry chefs in France formed their own corporations and took control over
pastry making from bakers. From this point on, the profession of pastry making developed rap-
idly, and bakers invented many new kinds of pastry products.
Honey was the most important sweetener at the time because, for Europeans, sugar was a
rare and expensive luxury item. Sugarcane, the source of refined sugar, was native to India and
grown in southern regions of Asia. To be brought to Europe, sugar had to pass through many
countries, and each overland stop added taxes and tolls to its already high price.
The European arrival in the Americas in 1492 sparked a revolution in pastry making. The
Caribbean islands proved ideal for growing sugar, which led to increased supply and lower
prices. Cocoa and chocolate, native to the New World, also became available in the Old World
for the first time. Once these new ingredients became widely accessible, baking and pastry
became more and more sophisticated, and many new recipes were developed. By the seven-
teenth and eighteenth centuries, many of the basic pastries we know today, including lami-
nated or layered doughs like puff pastry and Danish dough, were being made. Also in the
eighteenth century, processors learned how to refine sugar from sugar beets. At last, Europeans
could grow sugar locally.

From the First Restaurants to Carême

Modern food service is said to have begun shortly after the middle of the eighteenth century. Just
as bakers and pastry cooks had to be licensed, and became members of guilds, which controlled
production, so too did caterers, roasters, pork butchers, and other food workers become licensed
members of guilds. For an innkeeper to be able to serve meals to guests, for example, he had to
buy the various menu items from those operations that were licensed to provide them. Guests
had little or no choice. They simply ate what was offered for that meal.

Portrait of Marie-Antoine Carême, from

M.A. Carême. L’art de la cuisine française
au dix-neuvième siècle. Traité
élémentaire et pratique, 1833.
Division of Rare and Manuscript Collections,
Cornell University Library.
 BAKING: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 7

In 1765, a Parisian named A. Boulanger (whose name, incidentally, means “bread baker”)
began advertising on his shop sign that he served soups, which he called “restaurants,” or “restor-
atives.” (The word “restaurant” comes from the French restaurer, “to restore.”) According to the
story, one of the dishes he served was sheep’s feet in a cream sauce. The guild of stew makers
challenged him in court, but Boulanger won by claiming he didn’t stew the feet in the sauce but
served them with the sauce. In challenging the rules of the guilds, Boulanger changed the course
of food service history.
For the bread baker, two important events during this period were the publication of the first
major books on bread making: L’art du meunier, du boulanger et du vermicellier (The Art of the
Miller, the Bread Baker, and the Pasta Maker) by Paul-Jacques Malouin in 1775, and Le parfait bou-
langer (The Perfect Bread Baker) by Antoine-Augustin Parmentier in 1778.
The nineteenth century saw not just a revolution in food service but also in the development
of modern baking as we know it. After the French Revolution in 1789, many bakers and pastry
cooks who had been servants in the houses of the nobility started independent businesses.
Artisans competed for customers with the quality of their products, and the general public—not
just aristocrats and the well-to-do—were able to buy fine pastries. Some of the pastry shops
started during this time are still serving Parisians today.
An invention in the eighteenth century forever changed the organization of the commercial
kitchen, which to date had been centered round an open cooking fire. This invention was the stove,
which provided a more controllable heat source. In time, commercial kitchens were divided
into three departments, each based on a piece of equipment: the stove, run by the cook, or­
cuisinier; the rotisserie, run by the meat chef, or rôtisseur; and the oven, run by the pastry chef,
or pâtissier. The pastry chef and the meat chef reported to the cuisinier, who was also known as
chef de cuisine, which means “head of the kitchen.” Although the stovetop was a new feature of this
reorganized kitchen, the baker’s oven was still the wood-fired brick oven that had long been in use.
The most famous chef of the early nineteenth century was Marie-Antoine Carême, also
known as Antonin Carême, who lived from 1784 to 1833. His spectacular constructions of sugar
and pastry earned him great fame, and he elevated the professions of cook and pastry chef to
respected positions. Carême’s book, Le pâtissier royal, was one of the first systematic explana-
tions of the pastry chef’s art.
Ironically, most of Carême’s career was spent in the service of the nobility and royalty, in
an era when the products of the bakers’ and pastry chefs’ craft were becoming more widely
available to average citizens. Carême had little to do with the commercial and retail aspects
of baking.
In spite of his achievements and fame as a pastry chef, Carême was not primarily a baker, but
a chef de cuisine. As a young man, he learned all the branches of cooking quickly, and he dedi-
cated his career to refining and organizing culinary techniques. His many books contain the first
systematic account of cooking principles, recipes, and menu making.

Modern Baking and Modern Technology

The nineteenth century was a time of great technical progress in the baking profession.
Automated processes enabled bakers to do many tasks with machines that once required a
great deal of manual labor. The most important of these technological advances was the devel-
opment of roller milling. Prior to this time, flour was milled by grinding grain between two
stones. The resulting flour then had to be sifted, or bolted, often numerous times, to separate
the bran. The process was slow. Roller milling, described in Chapter 4 (see page 55), proved to
be much faster and more efficient. This was a tremendous boost to the baking industry.
Another important development of the period was the availability of new flours from the
wheat-growing regions of North America. These wheat varieties were higher in protein than those
that could be grown in northern Europe, and their export to Europe promoted the large-scale
production of white bread.
In the twentieth century, advances in technology, from refrigeration to sophisticated ovens
to air transportation that can carry fresh ingredients around the world, contributed immeasura-
bly to baking and pastry making. Similarly, preservation techniques have helped make available
and affordable some ingredients that were once rare and expensive. Also, thanks to modern food
8 C h a p t e r 1 The Baking Profession

preservation technology, it is now possible to do some or most of the preparation and processing
of foods before shipping, rather than in the bakeshop or food service operation itself. Thus, con-
venience foods have come into being. Today, it is feasible to avoid many labor-intensive pro-
cesses, such as making puff pastry, by purchasing convenience products.
Modern equipment, too, has helped advance production techniques and schedules. For
example, dough sheeters speed the production of laminated doughs, such as Danish dough,
while at the same time producing a more uniform product. Retarder-proofers hold yeast doughs
overnight and then proof them so they are ready to bake in the morning. It is now possible to
prepare some foods farther in advance and in larger quantities, maintaining them in good condi-
tion until ready for finishing and serving.

Modern Styles
All these developments have led to changes in cooking styles and eating habits. The evolution in
cooking and baking, which has been going on for hundreds of years, continues to this day. It is
helpful to explore the shifts in restaurant cooking styles, because those in baking and pastry have
followed a similar course.
A generation after Escoffier, the most influential chef in the middle of the twentieth century
was Fernand Point (1897–1955). Working quietly and steadily in his restaurant, La Pyramide, in
Vienne, France, Point simplified and lightened classical cuisine. His influence extended well
beyond his own lifetime.
Many of Point’s apprentices, such as Paul Bocuse, Jean and Pierre Troisgros, and Alain
Chapel, went on to become some of the greatest stars of modern cooking. They, along with other
chefs of their generation, became best known in the 1960s and early 1970s for a style of cooking
called nouvelle cuisine. They took Point’s lighter approach even further, by urging the use of
simpler, more natural flavors and preparations, with lighter sauces and seasonings and shorter
cooking times. In traditional classical cuisine, many dishes were plated in the dining room by
waiters. Nouvelle cuisine, in contrast, emphasized artful plating presentations done by the chef
in the kitchen. In the pastry chef’s department, this practice marked the beginning of the modern
plated dessert.

G E O R G E S - A U G U S T E S CO F F I E R
Georges-August Escoffier (1847–1935), the greatest chef of his
time, is still revered by chefs and gourmets as the father of twentieth-
century cookery. His main contributions were: (1) the simplification
of the classical menu; (2) the systematizing of cooking methods; and
(3) the reorganization of the kitchen.

Escoffier’s books and recipes remain important reference works for

professional chefs. The basic cooking methods and preparations we
study today are based on his principles. Escoffier’s Le guide
culinaire, which is still widely used, arranges recipes in a system
based on the main ingredient and cooking method, greatly simplify-
ing the more complex system handed down from Carême. Learning
classical cooking, according to Escoffier, begins with mastering a
relatively few basic procedures and understanding essential
ingredients.

Although Escoffier didn’t work as a bread baker, he applied the same

systems to the production of desserts that he did to savory food.
Several of the desserts he invented, such as peach Melba, are still
served today. Georges-August Escoffier.
Courtesy of Getty Images.
 BAKING: HISTORICAL BACKGROUND 9

A landmark event in the history of modern North American cook-

ing was the opening of Alice Waters’s restaurant, Chez Panisse, in
Berkeley, California, in 1971. Waters’s philosophy is that good food
depends on good ingredients, so she set about finding dependable
sources of the ­highest-quality vegetables, fruits, and meats, and pre-
paring them in the simplest ways. Over the next decades, many chefs
and restaurateurs followed her lead, seeking the best seasonal, locally
grown, organically raised food products.
During the latter part of the twentieth century, as travel became
easier, and more immigrants began arriving in Europe and North
America from around the world, awareness of and taste for regional
dishes grew. To satisfy these expanding tastes, chefs became more
knowledgeable, not only about the traditional cuisines of other parts of
Europe but also of Asia, Latin America, and elsewhere. Many of the most
creative chefs today are inspired by these cuisines and use some of
their techniques and ingredients. Master pastry chefs such as Gaston
Lenôtre have revitalized the art of fine pastry and inspired and taught a
generation of professionals.
The use of ingredients and techniques from more than one
regional cuisine in a single dish has become known as fusion cuisine. Alice Waters of Chez Panisse.
Fusion cuisine can, however, produce poor results because it is not Courtesy of David Liittschwager
true to any one culture and becomes too mixed up. This was espe-
cially true in the 1980s, when the idea of fusion cuisine was new.
Cooks often mixed ingredients and techniques without a true understanding for how
everything worked together. The result was sometimes a jumbled confusion of tastes.
Fortunately, since the early days of fusion, those chefs who have taken the time to study
in depth the cuisines and cultures they borrow from have brought new excitement to
cooking and restaurant menus. In the pastry department specifically, ingredients such as
passion fruit, mangoes, and lemongrass, once thought strange and exotic, are now com-
monly found.
The discussion of modern styles must include a mention of trends, fad, and fashions. An
interest in what’s new has always been a concern of professional cooks, but with the speed
of modern communication and the widespread use of social media, trends seem to come and
go more quickly than ever. An example is the recent popularity of cupcakes, which were sud-
denly in such demand that bakeshops selling nothing but a large variety of cupcakes sprang
up in many neighborhoods. By the time large chain stores had added cupcakes to their prod-
uct offerings, the fashion faded and many of the original cupcake bakeries had closed. New
shops offering dozens of varieties of doughnuts had taken their place to take advantage of
the next trend.
The interest in gluten-free diets, even among those who have no medical reasons
to avoid gluten, is another example. To satisfy demand, bakers must learn new tech-
niques, develop new formulas, and even set aside part of their production areas as gluten-
free environments. Fads and trends offer both opportunity and challenge to modern
bakers. To adapt to trends quickly and take advantage of new demands, bakers need to
have a solid foundation in basic baking techniques and procedures so that they can pro-
duce goods of the highest quality and, at the same time, be ready to move on when
fashions change.

The Evolution of Modern Bread

The progression of bread baking since the nineteenth century is an interesting example of how
technology has affected our food production. Two developments changed how bread was made,
and for the first time made possible the mass production of bread: the widespread use of mixers
and the development of modern yeast. Mixing machines, though invented decades earlier, didn’t
really become popular until the 1920s. Within a few years, stronger commercial yeasts became
10 C h a p t e r 1 The Baking Profession

available, meaning that bakers no longer had to depend on slow-fermenting sponges and sour-
dough starters to leaven their breads. Now, large quantities of breads could be mixed, fermented,
and baked in just a few hours.
By the 1950s and 1960s, most bread was being mass produced. Unfortunately, most of it was
boring and flavorless. To compensate for the rapid mixing and production processes, bakers had
to add dough conditioners and other additives to their products. But much of the flavor of good
bread comes from long yeast fermentation, so the new mixing and leavening procedures meant
sacrificing flavor for speed. As a result, bread became little more than a vehicle to hold sandwich
fillings or to convey butter and jelly to the mouth. Even in France, the baguette had become bland
and uninteresting.
Perhaps the most important figure in the bread revolution of the twentieth century was a
professor of baking from Paris, France, Raymond Calvel. Calvel did extensive research on flour
composition, fermentation, and other aspects of bread making for the purpose of restoring char-
acter and flavor to bread and to produce bread with only natural ingredients. His work stimulated
a return to older-style flours and more traditional mixing techniques. More than this, he devel-
oped new techniques, such as autolyse (explained on page 159), that enabled bakers to produce
flavorful artisanal breads without resulting in a return to the 12- to 16-hour days of heavy labor
required of bakers in earlier times. (More information on the bread revolution launched by Calvel
is detailed in the Bread Mixing: A Historical Perspective sidebar in Chapter 7 on page 119.) Calvel’s
book Le Goût du Pain (translated as The Taste of Bread) is today one of the most important refer-
ence books for artisan bakers.
This effort to recapture in bread lost flavors of times gone by has carried over to other baked
goods, including pastries and desserts of all kinds. The same artisan bakeries selling flavorful old-
style breads are also now enticing customers with higher-quality Danish, brioche, and croissants,
made with many of these rediscovered techniques. On restaurant dessert menus, this trend can
be seen in the home-style desserts made with the best ingredients, which sit comfortably side by
side with ultramodern pastry presentations.

KEY POINTS TO REVIEW LIONEL POILÂNE

❚❚ Why is wheat the most
important grain in the A generation younger than Raymond Calvel, the Parisian baker Lionel Poilâne expanded the
development of baked baking business he inherited from his father into one of the world’s most famous boulangeries,
goods? shipping his signature 2-kg round sourdough loaves around the world. Except for the use of
❚❚ How have new technologies mixing machines, he relied on traditional techniques and ingredients—such as stone-ground
changed the baking industry flour, wood-burning ovens, and sourdough fermentation—to produce his intensely flavorful
since the nineteenth breads. Sadly, Poilâne was tragically killed in a helicopter crash in 2002, but his daughter
century? Apollonia carries on the business today.

B A K I N G A N D PA S T RY C A R E E R S
SINCE THE BEGINNING of the twenty-first century, the popularity of fine breads and pastries
has been growing faster than new chefs can be trained to support it. Those entering careers in
baking or pastry making today will find opportunities in many areas, from small bakeshops and
neighborhood restaurants to large hotels and wholesale bakeries.

Restaurant and Hotel Food Service

As you learned earlier in this chapter, one of Escoffier’s important achievements was the reorgani-
zation of the kitchen. He divided the kitchen into departments, or stations, based on the kinds of
foods they produced. A station chef was placed in charge of each department. This system, with
many variations, is still in use today, especially in large hotels offering traditional kinds of food
service. In a small operation, the station chef may be the only worker in the department. But in a
large kitchen, each station chef might have several assistants.
 BAKING AND PASTRY CAREERS 11

Station chefs in large kitchens include the sauce chef

(saucier), who is responsible for sauces and sautéed items;
the fish chef (poissonier); the roast chef (rôtisseur); and the
pantry chef (chef garde manger). Desserts and pastries
are prepared by the pastry chef (pâtissier). Station chefs
report to the executive chef, or chef de cuisine, who is in
charge of food production. In the largest kitchens, the duties
of the executive chef are mostly managerial. The executive
chef may, in fact, do little or no cooking personally. The
sous chef assists the executive chef and is directly in charge
of the cooking during production.
The pastry department is usually separated physically
from the hot kitchen, for at least two important reasons.
First, and most obvious, is that many desserts and confec-
tions must be prepared in a cool environment. Second, the
division helps prevent creams, icings, and batters from
absorbing the aromas of roasted, grilled, and sautéed foods.
In a small to medium-size restaurant, the pastry chef
may work alone, preparing all the dessert items. Often he or
she works early in the morning and finishes before the din-
ner service starts. Another cook or the dining room staff
then assembles and plates the desserts during service.
In large restaurants and hotels, the chef in charge of
baking and desserts is the executive pastry chef. This is a
management position comparable to the executive chef in
the hot kitchen. The executive pastry chef supervises work-
ers in the department, including specialists such as the
bread baker (boulanger), who prepares yeast goods includ-
ing such breakfast items as brioche, croissants, and Danish
pastry; the ice cream maker (glacier), who makes frozen
desserts; the confectioner or candy maker (confiseur); and
the decorator (décorateur), who prepares showpieces,
sugar work, and decorated cakes.
In hotels, the work of the baking and pastry depart-
Courtesy of Shutterstock Images, LLC;
ment can be extensive, including preparing not only desserts and breads for all the on-premise copyright areashot.
restaurants, cafés, and room service, but also breakfast breads and pastries and all baked goods,
including specialty cakes and decorative work, for the banquet and catering departments. Such
large operations provide many opportunities for the baker wishing to gain a wide range of
experience.
Caterers, institutional volume-feeding operations (e.g., schools, hospitals, employee lunch-
rooms), executive dining rooms, and private clubs may also require the services of bakers and
pastry chefs. The required skills vary from one establishment to another. Some prepare all their
baked goods in-house, while others rely on convenience products and finished wholesale
­bakery foods.

Bakeries
Retail bakeries include independent bakeshops as well as in-store bakery departments in grocery
stores and supermarkets. High-end supermarkets, in particular, have opened many new opportu-
nities for creative bakers and pastry chefs. A few grocery stores have even installed wood-burning
hearth ovens for baking handcrafted artisan breads.
The head baker is the professional in charge of the production in a retail bakery. He or
she is in charge of a staff that may range from a few bakers who share most tasks to, in a larger
bakery, many specialists who work in different departments, such as breads and yeast goods,
cakes, and decorated items. Even bread-making tasks may be divided among different workers,
with some mixing, proofing, and making up the doughs, and others baking the items and manag-
ing the ovens.
12 C h a p t e r 1 The Baking Profession

Although most independent bakeshops offer a full range of products, from breads to cakes and
pastries, some make their reputations on one or two specialty items, such as cupcakes or artisan
breads, and concentrate on those products. More specialized yet are shops whose entire business
consists of preparing and decorating celebration cakes, such as for weddings, birthdays, and the like.
Wholesale bakeries accomplish the same tasks as retail bakeries, but their production facili-
ties may be more automated and industrialized. In them, equipment such as mixers and ovens
handle large volumes of doughs and baked goods. In addition to finished items, wholesale baker-
ies may produce unfinished products such as cake layers, cookie dough, and puff pastry dough
for sale to restaurants, hotels, caterers, supermarkets, and other food service operations.

Professional Requirements
What does it take to be a qualified baker or pastry chef?
The emphasis of a food service education, whether in baking and pastry or in the hot kitchen,
is on learning a set of skills. But in many ways, attitudes are more important than skills because a
good attitude will help you not only learn skills but also to persevere and overcome the difficul-
ties you may face in your career.
Mastery of skills is, of course, essential to success. There are, in addition, a number of general
personal qualities that are equally important for the new pastry chef or baker just graduated from
school who wants to advance in the industry. The following sections describe a few of these
important characteristics.

Eagerness to Work
Baking professionally is demanding, both physically and mentally. By the time students gradu-
ate, they realize that those of their fellow students who have been the hardest working—espe-
cially those who sought extra work and additional opportunities to learn—are the most successful.
Once they have graduated, bakers and chefs who continue to give the greatest effort are the ones
who advance the fastest.
One of the most discouraging discoveries for new culinarians is how repetitive the work is.
They must do many of the same tasks over and over, day in and day out, whether it’s making up
hundreds of dinner rolls a day or thousands of cookies for holiday sales. Successful bakers and
chefs approach repetition as an opportunity for building skills. Only by doing a cooking task over
and over can you really master it—really understand every nuance and variable.
Stress is another issue caused by repetitive hard work. Overcoming stress requires a sense of
responsibility and a dedication to your profession, to your coworkers, and to your customers or
clients. Dedication also means staying with a job, resisting the urge to hop from kitchen to kitchen
every few months. Sticking with a job for at least a year or two shows prospective employers you
are serious about your work and can be relied on.

Commitment to Learning
A strong work ethic is empowered by knowledge, so it is important that you, as a baking profes-
sional, make a commitment to your ongoing education: The baking and food service industries
are constantly changing, as new products and techniques are developed and new technology is
introduced. Therefore, continual learning is necessary for success. Read. Study. Experiment.
Network with other chefs. Share information. Join the alumni association of your school and stay
in touch with your fellow graduates. Take continuing education courses offered by schools and
trade associations. Enter competitions to hone your skills and to learn from your competitors.
Learn management and business skills and master the latest computer software in your field.
Remember that learning to bake and cook and manage a kitchen or bakery is a lifelong process.
An effective way to foster your own learning is through professional associations like the
American Culinary Federation (ACF), the Canadian Culinary Federation—Fédération Culinaire
Canadienne (CCFCC), and the Retail Bakers of America. These organizations provide a way to net-
work with other professions in local chapters and at regional and national trade shows. In addition,
they sponsor certification programs that document your skill level and encourage ongoing study.
In return, help others learn. Share your knowledge. Be a mentor to a student. Teach a class.
Help a coworker. Judge a competition. Contribute to professional workshops and seminars. Do
what you can to raise the skill level of the profession.
 QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW 13

Dedication to Service
Food service, as its name implies, is about serving others. Baking and cooking professionally
mean bringing enjoyment and a sense of well-being to your guests. Providing good service
requires sourcing high-quality ingredients and handling them with care and respect; guarding
the health of guests and coworkers, paying full attention to food safety and sanitation; treating
others with respect; making guests feel welcome and coworkers feel valued; and maintaining a
clean, attractive work environment. Look after others, and your own success will follow.

KEY POINTS TO REVIEW

Professional Pride
❚❚ What are the major baking
Professionals take pride in their work, and want to make sure it is something they can be proud and pastry career positions
of. A professional cook maintains a positive attitude, works efficiently, neatly, and safely, and in food service? In retail and
always aims for high quality. Although it might sound like a contradiction, professional pride wholesale bakeries?
should be balanced with a strong dose of humility, for it is humility that leads chefs to dedicate
❚❚ What are the personal
themselves to hard work, perpetual learning, and commitment to service. A professional who
characteristics that are
takes pride in his or her work recognizes the talent of others in the field and is inspired and stimu- important to the success of
lated by their achievements. A good baker or pastry chef also demonstrates pride by, in turn, bakers and pastry chefs?
setting a good example for others.

TERMS FOR REVIEW

A. Boulanger Marie-Antoine Carême saucier glacier

cuisinier roller milling poissonier confiseur

rôtisseur Georges-August Escoffier chef garde manger décorateur

pâtissier nouvelle cuisine sous chef head baker

chef de cuisine fusion cuisine boulanger

QUESTIONS FOR REVIEW

1. What characteristic of modern wheat flour makes it possible 4. Briefly describe how commercial kitchens were organized
to produce an elastic, yeast-fermented dough? Why was it after the invention of the stove in the eighteenth
not possible for prehistoric people to make such doughs from century.
the earliest wild grains? 5. What is nouvelle cuisine? How did nouvelle cuisine affect the
2. What historical event did the most to make sugar widely style of desserts served in restaurants?
available? How so? 6. Describe the organization of a large, modern hotel kitchen.
3. What contribution did beer production make to the process Name and describe specialty positions that may be found in
of bread making? large bakeries.