The area of catering is experiencing a flourishing period in terms of career outlets, and one of the most frequently asked questions in recent times is how to become a pastry chef.
That of the PASTRY is a very special branch, an area where technique and creativity go hand in hand and where the knowledge and skills acquired need to be updated with some frequency.
How to become a pastry chef: the steps
A great passion for sweets
It applies to all roles in the restaurant industry, indeed it applies to every profession: without passion, you go nowhere. Thus, those who want to become a pastry chef surely must have a great deal of motivation, an unconditional love for a profession that is as fascinating as it is tiring and complex, subject to often grueling shifts and working hours. Better to know this before embarking on a path that does not suit one's lifestyle.
Accuracy and organization
Other qualities that the confectioner must have are accuracy and organization. The PASTRY is chemistry, one often hears. And indeed it is: all ingredients must be combined and measured with maniacal care and precision. Just getting a small amount of an ingredient wrong is enough to screw up a job, a preparation. So out with approximation and superficiality: these are the things to shy away from in pastry making.
And for everything to run smoothly, organization is key. The pastry chef must also prepare his line of work on time, taking into account time, steps, needs and quantities.
Patience
Patience is the virtue of the strong and good bakers. Let us not forget that a cake, a cake needs time to be perfect. Good things, we know, are those that come from slow care and philosophy.
Creativity
Who wants to become a pastry chef must know from the beginning: creativity is the foundational as well as added value. Knowing how to make a good cake is not enough: one must know how to present it in an artistic way. And you have to always come up with something new, better if you can personalize it with your own stylistic signature, your own signature.
What to do, then? Learn to be creative. It is not true or necessarily true that creativity is only an innate gift: creativity can be learned through study, application, research, and time.
So all you have to do is get to work and experiment! Now is the right time to do it.
Technical knowledge
For be a good pastry chef, it is not enough to have innate personal skills or to be learned. It takes technique. And technique is also learned before on the field through good pastry chef course, updated and entrusted to smart professional teachers, such as that of Italian Food Academy, through which to learn the notions of:
- chemistry
- biology
- food safety
- food processing
- nutrition
- HACCP practical rules of hygiene
- Work organization, personnel and pastry enterprise system
- mise en place of the workplace in the pastry shop
- work equipment: characteristics and techniques of using pastry equipment and machinery to
- the processing of the dough
- Leavening and baking
- The processing cycle of pastry products
- Pastry techniques production of basic pastries
- Fresh Pastry
- Bakery: cakes, biscuits, tarts
- Creams and fillings and fillings: chantilly cream, custard, custard, bagne, etc.
- Decorations
Alongside these topics, then, we will experiment with everything to do with actual creativity, stimulating the imagination that is in every future pastry chef.
Teachers and tools: the elements of the craft
For become pastry chefs there are two things to keep in mind: learning from good teachers and learning to use the tools of the trade.
On the one hand, therefore, it will be very important to deal with lecturers who are up to the task, and on the other hand, it is crucial to learn how to use well the pastry tools, trusted workmates who can help achieve incredible results.
As for teachers, there are many and very valid ones. Among them Italian Food Academy makes use of some important names, such as David Larise (read the article about him) for vegan pastry.