A baker’s day in the life
I’ve always felt intimidated in restaurants because cooks have such a broad knowledge of diverse ingredients and techniques and I always felt like they knew so much more than me. But it’s not that they know more, it's just that they are trained to know very different things than I do. I've had friends in the industry who have asked me what my mornings are like before the chaos of the night crew walks in, what sorts of things I know, and how I use that knowledge every day. In the industry, we think that everyone knows everything, but of course, nobody can. This is why people are always asking questions and sharing information with each other. I relish the opportunities to chat with people and get down to the nuts and bolts of my work. Any little detail or technique in this industry could be a learning experience for someone else along the way. So I felt like why not chat about it here, where people might be curious to hear what a day in the life is like and what has varied for me working in different environments.
Day in the life
A bread baker's day usually consists of these main tasks: mix, bake, shape, scale, and extra prep. This order isn’t usually consistent though. When I worked at a sourdough bakery it was bake, mix, bulk, shape, rest, dry scale, extra prep. Early morning enter the bakery, flick on all the lights, and make sure the ovens are up to temp. Then the most crucial step, pick the playlist of what's gonna get me through this early morning. We all know the vibe is critical to a successful bake. For some reason, a normal choice for me was early 2000s rap (which if you know me, it may seem like an odd choice but for some reason, that’s what got me going on those early mornings).
Okay, the apron is on, the table is set up, and now I’m ready to bake. Or almost, then I think and make my game-plan. Timing out your morning and organizing what gets done when is crucial for making sure you are ready to open. It’s 4 am now and we open at 8, I have about 100 loaves to bake plus scones, cookies, and pastries. Three deck ovens that can each fit 18 loaves so that's 54 loaves in the first bake. They bake for 20 minutes with the steam on 10, minutes steam off so 40 minutes including pulling from the fridge, scoring, loading, rotating after steam, pulling from the oven, and stacking on the cooling rack.
Once round one is done and it's almost five, rinse, and repeat. Time to do it all again. Second load in. In the meantime line the next trays with cookies, scones, brioche, and muffins. Start bagging up the loaves of bread for wholesale. Okay second load out, next load in. Time to set up the front display shelves. Check the clock, half an hour until open. Time to start the mix while finishing up the bake. All doughs are dry scaled so just one at a time into the spiral mixer, when they’re done mixing place them into oiled bus bins and onto the racks to bulk ferment. After about a half hour to an hour of mixing the doughs are done and all of the other goodies are out of the ovens. Time to flip the open sign and greet the line of customers waiting outside the door eager for bread and morning pastries.
The morning rush happens for about an hour with the wholesale pickup somewhere in the mix. As the rush settles down and my other coworkers have arrived we get to cleaning from the morning bake and some prep for the next few days. With the clean up all done, and it’s nearing noon it’s almost time for “the roll”. One of my favourite parts of the day where I, alongside my two other coworkers, surround the centre table and roll all of the dough that was mixed earlier in the morning. One of us is scaling the other two shaping. We do a preshape in boules or batards of all of the loaves and line the wooden trays to rest until the final shape. By the time the preshape is done, we switch to the final shape, all the loaves go into bannetons, and then line the rolling racks in the walk-in. Once that's all over, the floor of the bakery and ourselves tend to resemble a well-dusted counter, it’s time to get our final deep-clean in for the day and head home.
From one place to another
Now that day in the life was at a bakery I was at almost 4 years ago. It was my second bakery job; a job which I started with very little knowledge and confidence but through the immense support from the owner and my coworkers, I learned a ton and am so grateful for that place because without it I wouldn’t have been brave enough to do what I did next. In the fall of that year, I moved to Toronto where I started my second year of culinary school and a new job at a fine dining restaurant, where you’d think I’d be working bread/pastry… not even close. I was working in a garde manger position in a very fancy kitchen with so many things I had never seen before. What in the world kind of magic box is a rational? Everything spotless, not being covered in flour every day, perfectly folded towels, responding “Yes Chef” to any and everything that was thrown my way, because I’m at the bottom of the food chain. I had never thrown myself into that “new” of a situation before. With foods and equipment I had never worked with, I was way in over my head. But I did my best and once again learned so much about what I like to do and how much I wanted to return to baking, which I did.
I moved out to the Maritimes, where my Dad's family's roots are from and started baking at a farm-to-table restaurant where I dove into even more learning. Going from a bakery with steam-controlled deck ovens to a wood-fired oven, from a mix of stone ground and commercially milled flours to only stone ground, low gluten, heritage grains. I was in a whole new bakeshop with lots to adapt to and learn. Troubleshooting a wood oven without any prior knowledge was a challenge. Starting off not even strong enough to lift the cast iron door off of the oven and figuring out how to incorporate steam into an oven of bricks, I knew it would be a fun challenge.
There were a lot of differences in all of those places. But at each place, I was constantly learning and was supported by incredible teams that shaped me into the baker I am today. But this whole working here, there, and everywhere thing, goes to show that each new place you work in this industry opens up a whole new world of things to learn.
