How to Become a Professional Pastry Chef?
If you have baking skills and love to prepare cakes, cookies, desserts, and many other baked goods, you have great potential to become a professional pastry chef. You only need to have a natural talent for baking and a big wish to spend hours preparing delicious food.
Every serious kitchen or restaurant needs to hire a professional pastry chef, who takes a great role in the whole service. If you want to be a baker and pastry maker, you need to know how to work with dough and sugar, and also, to have your special recipe and of course, a secret ingredient. Many chefs learned their skills from the parents or grandparents, but it’s always good to have a formal education, that will bring you a lot of certificates and recommendations.
You can also work for some hotel or restaurant, or you can have your own pastry shop. As long as you are good at your work, people will love to try your special treats and they will always want to come back for more.
If you want to be a pastry chef, here is what you have to do:
Be creative
Sometimes, you can turn even the simple cake into a piece of art, if you know what to add to the basic recipe and how to decorate it. Improve the old recipes, but also include something new to your many. Creativity is one of the most important skills of everyone who wants to work with food. You can prepare the best bakery products, but you also need to know to sell them to your customers and present the goods in their greatest form and shape. No one wants to buy and eat something that looks unattractive, never mind how delicious it is.
You need to be patient
Many recipes require a lot of knowledge, but patience is the key skill you need to have. You can’t expect to be a bakery expert at the first try. You shouldn’t be irritable or frustrated if something doesn’t go as you planned. Also, you need to be good at multitasking, because you may need to decorate something and look for another thing that is in the oven at the same time. Be patient until you learn the basics and advanced techniques and you will become an expert in bakery and pastry expert.
Well educated
Every professional baker and pastry chef need to be well educated in the field they work. You can sign up for a course, such as CulinaryLab, where you can learn all the important skills and techniques you will need to know. You should learn how to mix the ingredients and what baking pan to use, depending on what you prepare. For example, you must know what flour you need to use for different bakery products, how does the baking powder can make every recipe better, and when it is smarter to use baking soda instead of powder. This is only one example of what you need to know to become a successful pastry chef. You will need to learn a lot of things and use them on a regular base, but also to keep upgrading your knowledge.
Learn the basics of this art
Pastry and baking experts are in high demand because every restaurant owner knows that they can’t create a good menu with no pastries. You should learn cooking science, especially the baking part. You also need to know how you use the measurements and follow the recipes. When you know the basics, you can easily develop your techniques. Sometimes you will feel like a scientist when you need to measure the flour, baking powder, and water, and decide how much butter and sugar you need to add to the mixture. The courses will help you all of the necessary things you need to know before you become a professional.
What does a pastry chef need to do?
The job description for this profession is really long and complex. As a baking expert, you will need to create and evaluate new recipes, buy fresh products, supervise the pastry kitchen, and plan the menu of the day with the other chefs at the restaurant. You also need to keep the kitchen clean and organized, and to know where the ingredients are. One of the important things you need to know is the whole process of pastry preparation. What flour you need to use when to mix the water and eggs, how much oil you need to add, and which temperature is the best to keep the ingredients at. These small things will make you a great chef.
What should I learn about cooking?
Choose the course you want, but if you want to work as a culinary chef, you need to know all the safety terms and kitchen etiquette. Then, you need to learn how to use every piece of kitchen equipment. Also, you need to know the basics such as cutting the ingredients and their preparation. Next, you will learn to use baking ingredients properly. A good pastry professional knows how to prepare a few types of cookies, cakes, bread, pastries, how to work with chocolate and fondant and so one. Even if you think that you know everything, you don’t need to stop there. You can get even better as time goes by. Every skill needs to be reevaluated and upgraded.
Baking chefs are in high demand, especially in the hotels and restaurants that need to complete their menu with special meals and desserts. Some of them prefer to have freshly baked bread instead of buying it from a store. If you want to stay successful in this profession, you need to update your knowledge regularly. Take courses and visit cooking lessons. Don’t expect to be good at the first try. Sometimes you will fail, you will use salt instead of sugar or forget to put some important ingredient in the mixture. But, you will learn from your mistakes, and that is what will make you a better chef than the others.