Production techniques

[Spoons]

Gee, we froze everything in pastry school.
Had to keep up with production. We were producing for 3 restaurants on premises. Froze all the sponges,cheesecakes,etc.. cater wrapped them really well. Croissants and danishes, etc... all frozen.
Now for all my wedding cakes, I bake the sponges early when I have lots of orders and FREEZE. Yes, it helps.
And my cakes are moist.

[W.DeBord]

More specificly for a moment....how to handle production in a bakery. How to handle non-stop last minute orders, can't live with them but they sure can't live with-out them.

Cake's no problem, they should have extra in the freezer. But this place I'm at does decorated sugar cookies and their a nightmare (IMO). 1 dozen pigs, 6 boats, 15 camels, etc..... that would be fine but at the same time they'll get a reasonable order like 200 stars wrapped and you never know where your next big order might come from (they throw their extras in the showcase and they sell well). They offer about 100 different shapes with limitless decorating possiblites. How would you handle this?


8. How do you handle the misen place of your raw ingredients when your going thru a couple bags a day? Dump in bins or work out of bag set into bins? Do you work out of large containers items come in (like cinnamon or power or salt) or fill small bins daily and scoop out of them leaving the tops open while working?

9. Those of you with-out drawers in your tables. How do you store you utensils (so they don't get dirty) close at hand? Or do you use a cental location and pick-up utensils as needed?

[panini]

9: 6" round deep insert. all tools in that on the bench at all times.

[pastry--chef]

wow Wendy sounds like the mom and pop shop have a real cookie business on there hands 100 different shapes sounds like a night mare for me are they realsy making much $$$ from the cookies or would they be better limiting to say 25 different shapes and making there life a little easier? what about if they were to roll out the cookie dough to the desired thickness and stack it in the freezer between sheets of parchment then you just pull it out and cut out the desired shapes?. Are they making the cookies because they enjoy making and decorating them perhaps for them its 1/2 hobby 1/2 job? not the best way to run a business but.....????. perhaps if you put onto paper the ingredients+labour+overheads+profit of the product and then showed them the same equation for gateaux and the chance to diversfy(sp) into providing country clubs and hotels with a fresh product perhaps they might see a broader picture.
8: flour, sugar, etc..come in bags which are then wheeled under bench, I have worked in a place where we use to work directly out of the bag but we had a lot more room than we have in the resort.
9: utensils are kept in a large insert like panni uses next to the sink for items such as bread knives ,palette knives pastry brushes everything else cutters, peelers,steels(yeah right how many pastry chefs actually sharpen our knives ) stay in our tool boxes in the chocolate room or office everybody is suppose to have there own knives but we end up sharing alot.

Cheers PC

[W.DeBord]

All good points (as usual pastry--chef)...I'm working on helping them see how to do things better, etc... Their making these cookies cause they sell which =profit. I think looking their looking at trees and not seeing the whole forest.......blah blah.

"WHEELED UNDER THE BENCH" yeah, thank-you!!! Totally missed that, their now stacking on milk crates (quite a pain) but on wheels...would be brilliant!


o.k. my saga continues......

1o. I keep thinking there's no need for stationary racks in their walk ins. They waste space. Anyone use all carts and have any problems doing so? Any tricks for dealing with buckets in coolers? They always get stuck in a corner and you have to shuffle each one to find what your looking for...plus they waste space big time.

Any ideas?