Requirements to Be an Assistant Pastry Chef
Assistant pastry chefs handle many of the daily tasks in a pastry kitchen, including keeping an inventory of the necessary ingredients and prepping those ingredients. Pastry chefs typically arrive hours before service begins to prepare and bake the desserts. In addition to strong organization skills and attention to detail, the assistant pastry chefs must be artistic, as they often assist in decorating the desserts.
Other People Are Reading
-
Education
-
Most pastry kitchens require some level of pastry school for their assistant pastry chefs. These may include a baking and pastry certificate, an associate's degree in applied science culinary arts or a bachelor of arts in culinary arts. You typically can receive a certificate in six months, an associate's degree in two years or a bachelor's in four years. All include hands-on baking and decorating experience, but the more experience you have, the more likely you are to be hired as an assistant pastry chef.
Daily Operations
-
As an assistant pastry chef, you must handle the business side of the kitchen as well as the baking and creative aspects. Attention to detail is key; you must know how much of each ingredient is needed and order more accordingly while staying within budget. Some assistant pastry chefs are also in charge of ensuring that dessert presentations are consistent, monitoring the look of each dessert that leaves the kitchen.
-
Baking
-
Assistant pastry chefs must follow recipes developed by the head pastry chef. You must accurately measure ingredients, mix them and bake them correctly. Baking is often an exact science, so again, attention to detail is key. You must have a strong understanding of how to keep a kitchen sanitary as you work with raw ingredients such as eggs. Baking the desserts often means you must work long hours, arriving several hours before service begins to give you time to mix, bake and prepare the pastries, which sometimes means coming in during the wee hours of the morning to prepare for brunch or lunch service.
Decoration
-
Artistic ability is a must for an assistant pastry chef. Some are given the freedom to create specialty designs with frosting and sauces for each dessert, while others must follow a design created by the head pastry chef. Either way, you must be artistic enough to make the pastries look inviting and attractive and must understand how colors work together as well as how to create those colors in your icings, sauces, doughs and fillings.
-
References
- Photo Credit Thinkstock/Comstock/Getty Images
