The Fresh Loaf

A Community of Amateur Bakers and Artisan Bread Enthusiasts.

Advice and guidance to a useful start as a student

asder's picture
asder

Advice and guidance to a useful start as a student

Hi, I have been lurking at these forums for quite a few years now. I have decided that I want to pursue my career in the baking world. If the kind souls here could point me in the right direction, provide information to help narrow down choices that would be amazing.

My primary interests are as follows

1) Artisan bread baking from different cultures. I like to bake breads from different countries and see if people from that country approve of the taste. Most professional courses tend to focus on French, German and Swiss bread.

2) Cake baking + decoration, preferably with advanced techniques being taught

3) Learning how to make chocolate from the bean to the finished product as well as all the intricacies involved in making the amazing chocolates we see in chocolate shops.

4) Learning to make pastries from different cultures and not just French pastries.

So far I have not been able to find a school/institution that teaches any two of the above to an advanced course standing.

My aim is to open up my own place 5~10 years down the road, after gaining experience, knowledge and fine tuning techniques. The bakery section will provide the generic artisan breads as well as culture specific bread that people hardly ever get to eat outside of their home country (moms make things very easy at home for us). In the pastry/sweets section, I hope to introduce people to different forms of sweets and pastries that people eat around the world.

My purpose in asking for help here is to find a suitable place of study that caters to at least artisan bread baking, cake baking+decoration and if possible to chocolates at an advanced level. I prefer to study in Canada or USA, i would be an international student in either country.

Is it better to just simple novice level courses and learn the rest by taking future classes as experience is gained through work? Would people suggest I do things differently.

I am well aware of working hours, conditions, the physical and emotional costs involved. I still want to give my passion a try. Is there another better forum where i can ask this question?

jameseng's picture
jameseng

First off, best of luck to you...and to anyone and everyone looking to make their way in the world - whatever it is you choose to do. I can't speak to you specifically and only about baking since I am not a professional baker. I do know, however, that there are a million and one "tips" that a person, any person, can be exposed to. Despite the best of intentions, I think that it's easy for a person, any person, to get overwhelmed with just how much information/advice is out there. It makes me think of diet and exercise and why so many people struggle to achieve success; it's a complex equation that requires a lifelong commitment. Like baking (or many other pursuits in life), exercise requires long term persistence, consistent effort, regular introspection and lots of trial and error to find out what works best for you.

Why does one person start to exercise and continue to do so and why do others start and then eventually stop? Why does one person start to bake and continue to bake and why do others start and then eventually stop? I don't have an exact answer and I'm not sure that anyone out there can say that they have a "one size fits all" answer either; people are complicated and complex. I do think that education is important, in whatever field a person is endeavoring to be successful in - both technical education and SELF-education (finding out about yourself and under what kinds of conditions you work best). I'm also a big believer in making progress through small steps and patiently building one's skills. In my experience, people who work their way up gradually and slowly have the most longevity in the end. Folks who rush wind up burning out and losing interest, in my opinion.

I had the chance to hear Sebastien Rouxel (former executive pastry chef for Thomas Keller) speak and I thought a great bit of advice he had for the audience was to stick with one recipe and do it over and over and over again. He said that the biggest mistake he (and others) made was to jump from one recipe to another to another never mastering one particular type of bread. He talked about how when you do something over and over many times you become aware of certain nuances that you wouldn't notice otherwise. When you start to master the one recipe you can move on to others and apply what you learned from the first one to the rest of your baking. I thought this was a very helpful tip.

I would also say that any successful undertaking (at least a long-term, sustainable one) is dependent upon purpose. What is the reason a person decides to do what they choose to do? A wholesome, valid purpose is a critical part of establishing a solid foundation upon which to build.

Ack! I started off by talking about being wary of too much information and I see that I'm going on and on about this and that! See what I mean about there being lots of useful tips? I'll end by saying that I think it's so important for a person, be you a butcher, a baker, a candlestick maker to be surrounded by good, supportive people - people who share your values and are morally decent. I've watched good people get beaten down by insecure, power-hungry sycophants and I think it's one of life's biggest tragedies.

asder's picture
asder

@jameseng: Thank you for the reply. It is always good to have a reality check before getting on the horses and flying into the clouds. The fall can be painful otherwise. As for practise, I agree, the more one uses one recipe as a standard and fiddles around with it, the better one appreciates the intricacies involved with other recipes that one may not spot otherwise. I have been using the same whole-wheat loaf bread recipe for my bread, buns, rolls, pizza dough. On average you can say i bake about 2kg of dough every day, for two years straight. I have learnt quite a bit that way. Similarly I have used the same cake two cake recipes to bake cakes. I create substitutions to see what the differences are with regards to taste.

So far i have come to the conclusion, one can effectively reduce about 1/2 the sugar and butter amounts and replace them with healthier alternatives with a slight change in taste that most people won't notice.

As for my purpose into the baking endeavour? I want to share the different baked goods from different cultures around the world. I want to see the happiness on a Turkish grand mom's face when she tries out a baklava from my shop. Or the pure joy in a child's eyes when s/he tries out sweets and breads from other countries and cannot even pronounce the names but loves the items just as much. I never used to believe it before, but the finance sector really does suck your soul out at times.

MichaelLily's picture
MichaelLily

I think 1 and 2 (and 3 if you can find it) can be covered adequately by courses, but 4 might be better off apprenticing at a couple places that make what you are looking for.  I personally know two small but quality chocolatiers in Minnesota that make bean-to-bar chocolate.  They are nice folks and I'm sure they would be willing to take you on for a short stint to teach you that aspect.  DM me if you are interested in looking into this.

asder's picture
asder

@MichaelLily: Thank you for the kind offer, i will definitely be calling upon you later once i figure out 1,2,3. So far I am juggling between ICC and ICE as my schools of choice. ICE does have a component in their chocolate course where they show how to make chocolate from bean to chocolate bar. The more exposure one gets, the more one gets to learn from others. As mom says, try to go out and learn at least one good thing in life from others. Nothing happens by sitting in front of a computer all day.

lepainSamidien's picture
lepainSamidien

SFBI (San Francisco Baking Institute) offers courses for just about everything you've mentioned (though I don't think they're yet doing chocolate . . . but you'll have your hands full learning bread and pastry and running a business, so maybe think about chocolate as a future-future project ?), so you'd be wise to research them. They usually offer a series of courses that runs over the course of several months and takes you from the basics of bread making through advanced pastry. But beware : baking programs in the US are not like their European counterparts. While most programs, for example, in France lead to a nationally-recognized diploma, those given by private institutes like SFBI are not (the US does not have the same kind of registry for these trades). That's not to say that the program from SFBI, or a similar one, will not provide you with a great education that will make you very employable (quite the contrary, I would guess), but it's just a warning worth taking into account.

Additionally, the cost of the SFBI program is, let me put it frankly, pretty prohibitive : you're looking at well over $20,000 for tuition, and then you would have to house and feed yourself in the San Francisco Bay Area, all with a minimal income (unless you've parked a fat sum in some solid investments and can reap those benefits . . . for the rest of us, it's pretty unimaginable).

Before embarking on this adventure, you should really test out the job before you plunge pell-pell into training. Working in a bakery is not the same as making bread and pastries for family and friends. It's a business with slim margins, demanding physical labor, and hours that will alter quite radically your social life. Find a bakery where you can do an unpaid internship and give it a shot ; talk to bakers and pastry makers and chocolatiers, pitch your idea to them, and see what kind of responses you get. More often than not, passionate artisans will enthusiastically share their knowledge with you, especially if you demonstrate motivation and enthusiasm for their craft.

I don't mean to discourage you, but it's necessary to be realistic. I am actually in the middle of a similar path to the one you proposed, though I am taking a slightly different route as far as training is concerned. But wake yourself up with a little research and see if this is a career for you before you make too heavy an investment.

asder's picture
asder

@lepainSamidien: SFBI is a good option, but it runs into visa problems for me as an international student. I hear you about the cost. I have narrowed it down to ICE, ICC and AI Colorado (family support, still awaiting replies to questions). I have been juggling whether to do MBA (Expensive), MA + PhD Economics (Expensive and time consuming, but one of my passion) or baking (less expensive but similar time, one of my other passions). I only have 4 things i am passionate about in this world. I am willing to give up everything to pursue those passions, regardless of personal costs because they bring me inner peace and joy. Currently I cannot ask bakers and pastry makers in my area due to being in Pakistan. The working hours are not a problem, I do wake up at 2~3 am every day, even if classes/work are at 9~10 am or it is the weekend.

For the chocolate part, I am thinking that once I become comfortable enough with pastries, breads and cakes. Hopefully by that time I would have saved up enough money to visit Belgium for a year or so and learn about chocolates from there and hopefully get to work there for a few years to get a more well rounded experiences with chocolates.

I have saved up for the current career switch, thanks to my lifestyle being so inexpensive :D. There is hardly room to spend money if you are either at work, doing sports, at school, cooking/baking or sleeping. Poof just like that all the hours in the day vanish. I am contemplating the investment cost to this career switch. So far I have not found convincing figures on pays and pay scale with experience. Maybe I am using wrong search terms and websites. The general impression i get is that starting pays are about $11 to $15 an hour. They go up to $14 to $18 an hour with 2~5 years experience. With greater experience, switching to different venues also increases the pay. If somehow you make a successful business, than all the power to you, otherwise it does take time to get the business up and running and be comfortable enough to sustain financial crisis that life throws out at us.

I do understand that for me to be successful in this business I will have to be constantly learning, taking courses, improving my techniques, being innovative. There is no room for me if i am going to be satisfied with learning how to bake in a program and start shuttling between jobs and hope the world opens up to me. Due to working hours at a bakery, they line up really well if one gets a chance to be a part time professor at a university.

The ultimate goal is to self finance all the costs for my phd through my baking endeavour without giving it up. The thing I enjoy about working with baked items, no two days are the same with respect to what you make.