I am a new hire in the bakery department. I am going to attend orientation this week. What should I expect working in bakery ? Will I be making breads and cakes and cookies and such ? I would like to learn all there is in the department and move up down the road so I plan on sticking around for a few years. Is bakery a difficult department to work in ? Any suggestions please.
Can you decorate a cake i.e. make roses, borders, use an airbrush gun? Do you know anything about baking breads? If not then you'll probably doing something like bagging bread or boxing cookies, perhaps panning out pies and cookies for baking. Nothing is made from scratch. Cookies come in frozen and ready to bake. The same goes for pies. Bread dough comes in frozen. It just needs to be proofed and baked. Many of the cakes come in already iced. Some are already decorated too. Most of the other stuff in the bakery comes in already done. You just put a label on it and put it out. Working in the bakery department doesn't require the skills that it used to.
I am a new hire in the bakery department. I am going to attend orientation this week. What should I expect working in bakery ? Will I be making breads and cakes and cookies and such ? I would like to learn all there is in the department and move up down the road so I plan on sticking around for a few years. Is bakery a difficult department to work in ? Any suggestions please.
LOL - yea sorry but this isnt like your neighborhood bakery. Everything pretty much is already made and the employees just have to cook them. If you were hoping on whipping up a nice batch of chocolate chip cookies then later on kneeding some sourdough bread, well that ain't gonna happen.
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I am no longer part of the oppressed, evil workforce of Kroger! Can you say "Hallelujah"
I work in the bakery department and I've never really cooked anything big in my life. It's not hard at all. I work mostly evenings so I do the breakout. All this is getting all the foods out that they bake in the morning. You get the boxes out, put everything on trays (you have a sheet so you know how many of each to get out that day) and you stick it in the cooler.
I also clean the donut case, do markdowns, and bake and package cookies or cupcakes. The cookies are frozen, all you do is put them on trays and pop them in the oven.
The hardest part of working in the bakery is putting away the boxes on truck nights if you have to do that. It's not the easiest job position but I don't think it'd be the hardest.
6am: clock in and pull donuts from the cooler (that were set up by the afternoon person the night before) After the donuts are baked, decorated and set out, it should be around 7am. Our store has a rule that this stuff has to be done by 7am. The next step might be different at your store, since it just started at ours, but you make a CAP sheet. Basically it's the same thing we did before by hand, but with the RF Handheld. You go around the department making note of the items you'll need to stock up on throughout the day. My store used to just let us do this with a pen and paper, but I guess that wasn't cutting it, so now we have to scan EVERY SINGLE ITEM in the department and tell the CAP how many of each item we have in stock. Then some crazy math **** happens and it tells us how many of each thing to make (or put out, if it's pre-pack). After that's done, which takes about 45 minutes longer than the pen-and-paper version did, you start setting stuff up. Usually breakfast first, since that'll be what sells and will need to be filled. Fifteen-ish minutes to prep, twenty minutes to bake and another 5-10 minutes to decorate. (Sometimes we use colored danish frosting appropriate for the season, which could add a couple minutes to heat up). Next I try to work on the dough or the par-baked breads. Whichever we need most. We have an artisan bread steward who bags her own bread, so I usually just have to pop it in the oven and that ends my involvement. The dough is a little more work, with having to cut it up and prep it. I am a total nerd and made myself a little cheat sheet when I was still in deli and trying to learn bakery stuff. Actually, it was more like a book. Of index cards. Anyway, they have all the ways to make all the different types of breads, how to tell the difference between the Wholesome Harvest and the Maple Leaf pan breads, etc. and the PLUs and days-out to all the bakery items. It's really handy, especially if I'm off for a couple days and I get too used to not working. But I am useless without it. So once the dough is set up, it needs to be proofed. Ours gets an hour (and I'd be interested in learning if anyone else does this differently?) and then into the oven, with a 6 to 8 second steam to shine the bread and depending on what it is, 12-18 minutes at 375F. While the dough is proofing, I knock out the par-bake if I haven't already. Then I pack the breakfast and tag it and put it out. If I remember, I put the pies in now, but usually I forget until the pre-pack time of day. When the bread is baked, obviously it has to cool so I start pre-pack stuff. This requires quite a bit of freezer-digging, but is fun for me because it's like a little scavenger hunt! (Needless to say, our freezer is usually a god-awful mess). Tag that, put it out and then bag and tag the bread. The afternoon person is usually here by that time, so a break, maybe a lunch and then usually the truck arrives, if it's a truck day. Weird that some trucks arrive at night. I imagine that would make things easier, what with not having to dodge customers. Unloading the truck can be a pain, but since we just did a deep organizing of our freezer and got rid of a lot of old junk, our trucks should be pretty small now. Then it's back out on the floor for the afternoon CAPscan. One of the regular afternoon people is not so great at using the RF Handheld so this is usually my job. I let her do whatever clean-up or straightening there is to do while I do the scan. Then another break and some light work like cookies or doughnuts if needed until 230!
Evening shift is pretty much the same minus the prepack stuff.
Read CAP sheet, bake CAPsheet items, pack them out, reset dough for the morning shift, set up doughnuts and relax. Our deli folks do the markdowns for us and usually do a pretty good job of it.
The only things I've left out are occasional manager checks or what we know it as: "getting fussed at for not having stuff out". Rant: I have had a co-manager come to the bakery at 8am and ask why nothing was out yet. UMMMMMMMM because I'm still baking it????
Straighten out the channel carts. Turn the oven and proofer on. Pull the bread and donuts out of the retarder.
Pan out all the rolls that are already in individual pieces. This is so they don't dry out just sitting on the cart. If I have to, I'll pan them out on a 20 rack cart but then I'll split them up when I get ready to bake them. Our proofer only holds 2 carts and I like to get as much on a cart as possible. When I get the first cart panned out, I put the par-baked loaf breads in the oven.
Usually by then it's around 6 o'clock. I then pan out the Italian loaf bread and the White Mountain bread. If there's room on the cart I'll pan out the Twin French. Once again I pan it all out on a 20. I then pan out the Crusty French bread and put that in the oven. While that's baking I start getting the donuts ready. I try to have them out by 7 am but if I have to stop for some reason they might not get out until quarter after.
By the time I've finished with the donuts, the first cart is ready or almost ready to come out of the proofer. If it's almost ready, I go ahead and pull it out and just let it sit there till it's proofed enough. I always let the cart sit out for several minutes anyway before putting it in the oven. It bakes better and browns more evenly if it rests before baking. I scan out the losses at this time.
I usually pan out the Sweet Italian bread and rolls and the sweet goods on the next cart. The colossal coffee cakes go on a cart by themselves. I pan out that stuff together because I bake it at a lower temperature than I do the other breads and it usually proofs in the same amount of time. The Italian bread is usually ready to be baked by the time I finish panning all the sweet goods out. Sometimes it's ready earlier. When I get the sweet goods in the proofer and the Italian bread in the oven I take a break. Sometimes if the Italian bread proofs faster than normal I have to go ahead and put it in the oven before I've finished panning out the Sweet Italian and the sweet goods. If this happens, I just tell someone to watch the oven while I go on break. Usually it's around 8:30 or quarter till 9 at this point.
When I get back, I pan out the last cart of bread. This cart consists of the rye bread, hard rolls, variety rolls, sub buns, focaccia bread, cheese sticks, pepperoni rolls, and Twin French if I haven't already put it on with the Italian bread. When I'm almost done panning out that cart, I check on the Sweet Italian and the sweet goods that are in the proofer. Hopefully they're ready. If they are I let the Sweet Italian rest and I prep the sweet goods (add fruit filling and stresel). While that stuff is baking, I finish panning out the bread. I like to time it so the stuff in the oven comes out just when I get the last cart in the proofer. That way I can glaze the stuff while it's good and hot. By now it's around 10:30 and time for lunch. Sometimes it's later. Sometimes it's earlier. It all depends on fast the bread proofs.
When I come back from lunch, the last of the bread is ready for the oven. The fastest stuff takes at least 16 minutes. So while that's baking, I go back and start breaking down the deli/bakery frozen food order. I don't mind doing it if it's small (under 50 pieces total) but nobody in the department knows how to order properly. If you got 3 cases of something yesterday and you only put out one, why are ordering 3 more?
After I finish the frozen order and the bread is baked, I do the breakout. I refuse to do that CAP. It worked fine at first but it's all screwed up now. It was a pain in the ass to begin with. It seems to me they could use scan data along with the daily minimums to automatically generate a breakout rather than having to scan each item and input how much we need to bake manually. Now, with the machine screwed up, it's even worse. Yoo used to be able to scan the item, input how much you want to bake, and then go to the next item. Now, when you scan an item, it puts the cursor back at the UPC position and you can't move it using either the arrow keys or the enter key. The only way to get it down to where you need it is to hit F2 (for update). You can then put the cursor where you want it but you have to hit F5 to save it. I only have to worry about scanning the bread and it took me 30 minutes one day to get it all scanned in. That's 30 minutes that I don't have time to waste. That's when I decided I wasn't going to do it anymore. I've been baking for almost 20 years now. I think I have a handle on how much we need to bake each day.
By the time the breakout is finished, it's usually time or past time for me to take my last break and go home. I always take my last break the last 15 minutes of my shift.
I've been wondering why every other store has the morning person do breakout, and yet I'm doing it at night for the morning person.... And i'm still using the sheets here instead of that CAP thing so I'm happy about that.
I've been wondering why every other store has the morning person do breakout, and yet I'm doing it at night for the morning person.... And i'm still using the sheets here instead of that CAP thing so I'm happy about that.
The reason I do it is because the only other person who knows how to do it is the other baker, and the only time she does it is when I'm not there. On the days I don't bake bread I bag it, but I still do the breakout. It also lets me control how much bread is in the freezer so someone doesn't order too much. It's actually pretty simple. After I get done breaking out a certain item I look to see how much is left in the box and how much is left in the freezer. I also take into account whether the item has already been ordered or if it's back on that day's frozen food order. If I have at least 2 days worth of product I don't order it. The exception is if we're not getting an order the day after next I have to think 3 days ahead rather than 2.
God I wish we had that much organization. The dept head places the order for us and usually just makes up what else to order after putting our list in the computer. It's pretty frustrating. Also, anonymous: I don't pay nearly enough attention to how many trays can fit on the channel carts. I didn't even know they were called channel carts! But then, I'm pretty new to baking. I know we don't use white mountain bread. Just country french for all white breads and sweet italian for the rest. I also find it strange that you don't do all the dough at once, but I guess every store is different!
God I wish we had that much organization. The dept head places the order for us and usually just makes up what else to order after putting our list in the computer. It's pretty frustrating. Also, anonymous: I don't pay nearly enough attention to how many trays can fit on the channel carts. I didn't even know they were called channel carts! But then, I'm pretty new to baking. I know we don't use white mountain bread. Just country french for all white breads and sweet italian for the rest. I also find it strange that you don't do all the dough at once, but I guess every store is different!
The reason I don't do it all at once is even though we are one of the top stores in the division we still have just a two rack proofer and just one double rack oven. If I didn't stop and take my break after putting the Italian bread in the oven I wouldn't get my break because everything would start backing up. I have to know that when I leave to go on break or lunch that there's nothing in the oven that has to be a kept an eye on or there's nothing in the proofer that's going to overproof while I'm gone. Occasionally I'll have to get someone to pull stuff out of the oven but it's always something that I know will be done. So they don't have to worry about whether it's done or not.
The other baker does things differently. She comes in a half hour earlier but she does the outdates first and then does the crusty bread and other parbaked bread and then starts on the donuts. She doesn't start panning out the dough until after 7 o'clock. The bagger is usually scheduled to come in at 7. So the only thing they have to bag is the crusty and parbaked breads. Because of this, the bagger has to find something else to do while they're waiting on the baker. It also causes the baker to rush things in order to get done on time. The bread is often underproofed due to this rushing. I can't figure out why she does it this way.
Some of those items my store doesn't even carry and the ones we do have, we bake a lot less of. For example, we only need 4 colossal coffee cakes out at a time, and only one focaccia bread.
Some of those items my store doesn't even carry and the ones we do have, we bake a lot less of. For example, we only need 4 colossal coffee cakes out at a time, and only one focaccia bread.
On average our weekly budget for the bakery is about $12,000. Deli has a budget of about $25,000.
Wow, yeah, we don't have half of that stuff. I don't even know what a schnecken is!
It's a cinnamon danish. The word, "schnecken" is German for snails. The coiled shape of the roll is supposed to resemble the coiled shape of a snail's shell.
Is the cherry a topping? Or mixed in? We have cinnamon rolls (same rolls we use in the colossal coffee cakes) we use in six packs.
It's a topping, like a pie filling. The same thing goes for the apple filling. I just assumed that all stores used fruit fillings for their sweet goods. The filling is added after the items are proofed. They're then topped with streusel and baked.
If it's anything like the strawberry topping we use on our gourmet cakes, I'd rather not use it. That stuff is just pure red high fructose corn syrup and cakes are fattening enough as is!
If it's anything like the strawberry topping we use on our gourmet cakes, I'd rather not use it. That stuff is just pure red high fructose corn syrup and cakes are fattening enough as is!
I hate that strawberry filling. To me it tastes like cough syrup. Homemade is much better.
