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Pastry Arts Tips
Raising Dough
Altitude and air moisture can make a difference in raising bread dough. So can the age and type of yeast and the amount of sugar used. Always raise dough away from drafts. An unheated or a low heat oven is great place to raise dough but be careful no one accidentally cooks it! You can also put the dough in a refrigerator overnight and it will rise.
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Dessert Downtime
There’s no place like home, and that’s not just a line from the Wizard of Oz. After a crazy day battling noise, pollution, crime, and your mother-in-law, having that sanctuary to go to is wonderful. You unlock the door, walk inside, close the curtains, shut the ringer off the phone and stare at your closed refrigerator door trying to remember why you wandered into the kitchen in the first place.
What? You don’t do that? Okay. Maybe your way of unwinding after a long day is a little different. Some people unwind by baking. No, they’re not pastry chefs by trade. They just like to try different dessert recipes and pastry recipes. Come on, who doesn’t love chocolate? The best reason to make a chocolate dessert after a crazy day is the opportunity to then eat said chocolate dessert.
If you find you’re wasting more ingredients than you should, or that your dessert plates look more like plates of unformed sugar lumps, maybe it’s time to look into some pastry schools. You can choose from night courses that are as much as 12 or 15 hours in length, or mini courses that give you a few hours of tips and tricks to help you with your puff pastry endeavours. Whether you are interested in pastry checf jobs, or simply as a hobby, it never hurts to hone your skills.
Whatever you decide to do, just remember: there’s nothing wrong with spending a little quiet time in the kitchen, even if you did forget why you wandered there in the first place.
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Raising Dough
Altitude and air moisture can make a difference in raising bread dough. So can the age and type of yeast and the amount of sugar used. Always raise dough away from drafts. An unheated or a low heat oven is great place to raise dough but be careful no one accidentally cooks it! You can also put the dough in a refrigerator overnight and it will rise.
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A Trip to the Bakery
There is always a reason to visit the local bakery. Maybe a birthday is coming up, a holiday is just around the corner, or this is the day Mr. Fluffers is being neutered. You don’t even need a reason to buy out an entire bakery.
The next time you’re at the bakery, give thanks to the pastry chef. Because that person is the pastry chef means that you don’t have to be. This person sacrificed a lot to attend pastry chef school so that you could show up at the counter every other day, eyes bulging, pockets full of change, to buy all the puff pastry off the shelf. The pastry chef is as important to the neighbourhood as the lawyer and the psychiatrist. Maybe there’d be less crime and mental health issues if people just gave in to the wonders of puff pastry. Okay, that’s an exaggeration. Just be thankful there’s a pastry chef in your neighbourhood.
Low on change? If you visit the local bakery at the end of the day, right before closing time, you may find lots of goodies have gone half price. If certain things haven’t sold by closing time, the owner may end up throwing it out. Pastry should be fresh and after a day or two, it can’t be sold anyway. If that happens, you might be able to scoop up a few extras for free. After all, they were only going to go in the garbage anyway.
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Baking School Degree Programs
Do you dream of owning your own bakery? Are you considering becoming a pastry chef or baker? Or, perhaps you just want to take your baking and pastry career further. Either way, a degree from any baking school will further your career and education. There are a variety of degree programs to choose from, and some of them are: Associate of Applied Science degree in Professional Cooking and Baking, Associate of Applied Science in Professional Baking and Pastry, Bachelor's Degree in Culinary Arts, Pastry Arts and many others.
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The Job of a Pastry Chef
Years ago, there was a television commercial where a guy would pop out of bed at 4 a.m. saying, “Time to make the doughnuts.” The commercial was for a chain of American doughnut shops, but the sentiment could be appreciated by all pastry chefs. Pastry chef jobs are not for people who like to party all night and sleep all day. This is definitely a job for a morning person.
Besides molding, shaping, and sweetening ingredients into soft mounds of chewy goodness, pastry chefs perform a number of other functions including:
Ø Supervising staff
Ø Ordering restaurant and cooking supplies
Ø Costing supplies
Ø Menu planning (depending on where the pastry chef works)
A professional pastry chef might provide local restaurants, grocery stores, or neighborhood bakeries with their creations. Or, a professional pastry chef might have his or her own business to run. There’s something about the term “pastry chef” that makes it sound easy or frivolous. Nothing could be further from the truth. Pastry chefs are like the athletes of the cooking world. They’re up long hours, on their feet, working in hot, pressure-cooker environments sometimes, must focus on fine details, and manage to pull the whole thing off day after day. The next time you’re enjoying a delicious puff pastry, think about the long hours and hard that went into making it.
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What Will I Learn in Pastry Chef School?
There are many things you can learn while attending pastry chef school. Two of the more popular courses for a pastry chef are baking and pastry arts & culinary arts. Baking and pastry arts courses will teach you the art and science of baking. The course also allows you to use a variety of tools and equipment to prepare cookies, centerpieces, desserts, candies, quick breads, yeast breads and more. A culinary arts course through pastry chef school will put you on track towards obtaining a degree in culinary arts. This degree program focuses on the principles of food service production, food service sanitation, nutrition, stock and sauces, American regional cuisine, dining room management, storeroom operations, meat cutting, international and French cuisine and more.
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Bread Baking Techniques
Following are a few bread baking techniques that you can apply the next time you decide to bake a loaf of bread. 1. The one thing a teacher in bread baking school will tell you is, "practice," "practice," "practice." In other words, keep making the bread until you get it right; you can always eat your mistakes. 2. The temperature for dough to rise should be around 70 to 75 degrees Fahrenheit. 3. Invest in a thermometer so you can test the temperature of the dough while kneading it. Doughs are best when kneaded to between 76 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit. Check the temperature after eight minutes of kneading your dough.
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Bread Baking Secrets
Do you enjoy bread baking? Following are a few bread baking secrets that you can apply the next time you decide to do some more bread baking in your kitchen.
1. Dough will be ready for baking if you lightly press on the top of the dough, with the tips of two fingers (about ½ inch), and the indention from your two fingers stays. If the indention does not stay then your dough needs to rise longer. 2. For a darker, browner crust, bake your bread in a glass pan. 3. If your bread baking recipe calls for eggs, butter or other moist ingredients, the dough usually stays sticky. 4. During bread baking, to prevent the bread from sticking to the pan, lightly scatter a little cornmeal on the sides and bottom of your bread baking pan, but first, make sure to oil your pan as usual.
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Average Pay of a Pastry Chef
After you've put in the time through pastry school it's time to think about your career as a pastry chef. If you think a career as a pastry chef is right for you, and if you're ready to work long hours (usually early in the morning), then you expect to earn an average of $56,000 per year starting out, and as you advance you can earn upwards of $65,000 per year with potential to earn more over time with experience.
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Most Common Mistakes in Bread Baking
Have you ever wondered why your bread did not rise during bread baking? Maybe it was because the yeast that you used was expired, or it could have been because the water temperature was not correct when you added the yeast.
Did your bread have a sour flavor after bread baking? You may not have kneaded the dough long enough.
Did the top of the crust crack? Next time use less when kneading and shaping.
If you'd like to learn more about bread baking you can sign up for a pastry course -- available from many culinary and pastry chef schools.
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Culinary Careers After Baking School
After you finish baking school there are a number of culinary careers you can pursue. A few that you may want to consider are: pastry chef, baker, decorator, donut maker, assistant production manager, pastry chef assistant, bakery manager, executive chef for gourmet and bakery, master baker and many others. Getting an Associate's Degree can take up to two years, and getting a Bachelor's Degree will require four years of study. A degree in culinary arts does not gaurantee a job in the business, but hands-on learning and hard work will pay off in your career.
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Bread Baking Tips
Following are a couple bread baking tips from two chefs: 1. David Lawrence, private chef and author of "Boy Eats World" says, "one of my favorite tips for bread baking is to place your bread dough into a slightly warm oven to rise." And he recommends that you turn your oven to 300 degrees for one minute and turn off immediately. "It creates the perfect environment for the dough to rise," David says. 2. Helene Kennan, Executive chef of Bon Appétit at the Getty Center in Los Angeles, recommends that you use the right equipment and follow the recipe exactly.
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How to Annoy the Pastry Chef
Just because you took a course last summer on chocolate dessert baking doesn’t make you a pastry chef. Yes, you learned some great things, have been baking up a storm ever since, yada yada yada. The pastry chef down the street doesn’t want to hear all about it. In fact, if you bug the pastry chef too much, he or she just might close up shop and move away. Then what will people do to get their puff pastry? On the other hand, if you’re determined to completely annoy the pastry chef, here’s how you do it:
Show up everyday minutes before they turn the Open sign to Closed.
Show up everyday, pick a specific pastry, and ask the chef to tell you what he put in the recipe.
Make suggestions for that recipe.
Tell the pastry chef you used his last batch of squares as paperweights.
Tell the pastry chef you used his last batch of squares as pumice stones.
Type up some of your own dessert recipes and leave them for the pastry chef to try.
Buy as many things as you can, go home, then return to the bakery and tell the pastry chef you bought too much and want to return a few things.
You see, it’s very easy to annoy the local pastry chef. Just remember, when the pastry chef packs up shop and leaves town, you’re not going to be the most popular person on the block.
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French Pastry Courses
You can study French pastry by taking some courses in France, and the courses provide an English interpreter. By taking a French pastry course you can learn how-to line fancy cakes, how-to cut dough, fermentation control, bread baking and a whole lot more.
Ecole des Trois Ponts is one place in France where you can study French pastry. Courses at Ecole des Trois Ponts can cost as little as €940 per week with a deposit of €100, this does include housing too. To find out more about the types of courses, prices, housing and more you can search Google for "Ecole des Trois Ponts".
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Raising Dough
Altitude and air moisture can make a difference in raising bread dough. So can the age and type of yeast and the amount of sugar used. Always raise dough away from drafts. An unheated or a low heat oven is great place to raise dough but be careful no one accidentally cooks it! You can also put the dough in a refrigerator overnight and it will rise.
