Baker

Today’s baker is involved in the production of bread, baked snacks, rolls and other bread products. The baker’s simplest task is combining grain(usually crushed) yeast and water into a dough which is then baked in an oven, producing a food product. Probably the highest practitioner of the baking art today is the pastry chef, whose job it is to create and bake attractive and delicious baked snacks and desserts. Pastry chefs are generally found in expensive boutique bakeries, hotels, and fine restaurants.Body text goes here.

What Does A Baker Do?

80% of our country’s bread and related products are mass produced in plants. Bakers working in this environment may find themselves in an assembly line operation, preparing dough, or operating a wrapping machine. The remaining 20% of our baked products come from in-store bakeries found in supermarkets and small bakeries where bakers have the ability to practice all of their traditional skills. These functions may include baking and decorating a cake, preparing trays of rolls for baking, running a fresh loaf through a slicing machine, or building a pie from scratch using dough and fruit filling.

Characteristics Of A Baker?

An accomplished baker has a wide assortment of skills. Cooking skills are required, in order to create the fillings found in most baked desserts and to understand what impact an oven will have on those ingredients. Increasingly, visual artistry is a baker’s role, in decorating individual desserts, cakes and plates of baked treats. Bakers in high-volume environments such as hotel and banquet kitchens must also be adept with logistics, planning the timing for production of multiple items or large quantities of items at once.

The Nitty Gritty: Salary

Statistics are a little hard to come by, as most data bureaus classify bakers as some sort of food preparation worker. However an industry journal lists median salaries for employees of high-volume facilities as follows:

Mixer/Oven Operator - $26,250
Baker Manager - $43,000
Bakery Director (In all likelihood, plant manager) - $75,000
On the upscale side, the median entry level salary for a trained pastry chef is $35,000