Category: General Food Recipes

The Process of Becoming a Pastry Chef

Want to make a name in the culinary arts industry? Well, you have several options and each of which require dedication, self-training and formal training and lots of creativity and love for food, more specifically pastries.

Pastries are not among the hardest to prepare and cook but they are not also the easiest to make. In short, they’re just somewhere in the middle. But this doesnt mean that you can be a pastry chef if you only have the “want”. Without the seriousness for work and the passion on what you are doing, becoming anything that is truly significant would be as hard as pushing a boulder uphill. If you are truly recognizing your need to become a pastry chef, we advise you to continue reading.

Know what you truly want to do
First you have ask yourself if you have the vocation. Cooking is not merely something one does to kill time or to express his love for exploring options on preparing for himself meals that he wants. It is also a vocation, a sort of a calling. As someone contemplating on this option, it is best that you recognize the need for self examination.

You will have to examine your intentions on entering in the world of the culinary arts. If you truly want to take things seriously, you will have to firmly decide what you intend to do. If you cannot establish your real plans, you might find yourself hanging at the end of the string, realizing that you have wasted time on something that you really dont want.

No one would stop you from becoming a pastry chef. It is just that there are lots of options out there both presented by the culinary arts industry and other industries. If you really want to become an expert in pastry preparation then apply for a course in culinary arts major in pastries. There are bachelor’s degrees, associate degrees and other minor degrees that you could choose from. Whichever way you want, be firm. Once you have begun your posit of career, you must decide not to stray away from it unless you have some good reason to support your decisions.

Train, train and train some more
Apart from your dedication on your chosen field, there is nothing that could equal your formal and informal training in relation to your becoming a pastry chef. Training could be vied as an educational aspect or it may be viewed as practical application of what you have learned in schools.

Training would not only let you use what you have learned but it would also help you perfect some components that lack fineness of delivery. After all, practice makes perfect, right?

While there may things that could not be perfected, you still have the option on taking things closer to perfection.

You would only spot your mistakes and imperfections through training. There are lots of pastry chefs who never stop training even after school hours. This training come in forms like preparing pastries at home, reading materials regarding pastries and observing people doing some pastry works. Any kind of training and practices could benefit a learner so long as he is attentive enough on both the essentials and the not-so-significant things that could be turned into specialties.

Discernment and training are crucial components of becoming a pastry chef. It is not all about cooking and preparation of ingredients after all, it is also about taking inward and outward steps that would deliver you from point A to the point B of your career.

The Factors of How to Become a Personal Chef

You might have encountered a survey asking teenagers of what they want to hire in case they have excess money to spend on luxuries. Many answered- a personal chef.

This survey only recognizes the want of people to have people pampering them with palatable foods and delectable menus. And who would not want some leisure, right?

A personal chef is someone who prepares and cooks food specifically for a person who has hired him. It may either be for some special occasions only but other people, who have the many enough, may even hire professional chefs, for the leisure of fine dining right at their houses.

Personal chefs could be compared to old maids who have learned to perfect numerous menus to serve their house. The difference however is that professional chefs have formal education and have attended formal classes and therefore, practical applications of whatever programs they have chose dot attend. Also, personal chefs are hired and are paid according to the degree of mastery they have. But that is difficult to measure really that’s why it is best that they are paid according to the dictates of the present career value and several other factors.

Personal chefs are undoubtedly the personal choices of the clients who hired them. They have the pleasure of preparing and making menus that would suit the tastes of the people they cook for. This is why it is vital that both the chef and the client have some degree of connection when it comes to taste and food choices.

Often, people interchange the jobs of personal chefs and caterers. There are main differences and we would site portions of them here.

For one, caterers are most likely businesspeople who are hired to create beverages, food and service functions on events ranging from intimate family dinner to weddings, parties and conferences. Personal chefs, on the other hand, are paid to cook meals for individual families and in-home food services for dinner parties.

Apart from what we have mentioned here, there are other several factors that determine an excellent personal chef from that of a not-so-good one.

Personal taste
We have earlier mentioned that to be able to satisfy the needs of the client’s taste buds, the personal chef and the client must have some degree of connection in terms of food choices. This might be quite hard to find and it is practically the reason why there are too many occasions where clients change their personal chefs.

Diversity of knowledge
Maybe you like a particular cuisine or maybe you like a particular way of preparing and presenting food. But fixation on a specific cuisine may not be too healthy for both the client and the personal chefs. The knowledge on food diversity is crucial since this would likely give better options for both parties. Therefore, the personal chef must be able to practice and perform several types of cuisines that would satisfy the need for multiplicity of meal choices.

Attitude
Apart from taste for fine foods, creativity and hygiene, you also need people skills. Whether you like the idea or not, you have to sell yourself to people. To make people recognize your potentiality of giving services to them and your credibility on satisfying their need for well-prepared food. This is why it is important that you practice good attitude towards your client and your assistants.

The Different Requirements to Become a Chef

Becoming a chef is not really easy. If you have seen the show “Jamie’s Kitchen” then you might have an idea just what it takes to become a chef. People have to go through rigorous training and testing to know whether or not they really are qualified to become chefs. The requirements to become a chef go way beyond a degree in the culinary arts. Here are some of the requirements to become a chef that you may not know about:

1) Passion and hunger passion for food and for life is what is common in all chefs. After all, food is life. Food is the most tangible expression of artistry. In all forms of art, people are made to feel the artist’s emotions. In order to make the food truly delicious, you have to cook it with passion. This is the most basic requirement to become a chef.

Hunger is also needed. You need to be always hungry for challenges. This will help you throughout the rigorous training of becoming a chef. Once you are a chef, the only thing left to do is improve. You need hunger to make sure that the more experience you have, the better your cooking skills become. Passion and hunger have to work hand in hand to make sure that you learn how to cook and you never stop learning. These two requirements to become a chef are inseparable.

2) Efficiency many people tend to overlook this requirement to become a chef. What you need to know is that a chef makes use of raw materials in order to produce something that people will be willing to pay for. These raw materials cost money. A chef has to make sure that the materials used in creating dishes are not wasted in any way. This basic requirement to become a chef will help you make sure that you will get the maximum profit from your expenses.

Efficiency also has a lot to do with time. When working in a restaurant, a chef has to deal with the impatience of people. This means that a chef needs to be able to work quickly. This requirement to become a chef is also very important since most chefs are required to multi-task. You need to be able to manage people efficiently. Chefs are often shorthanded in the kitchen. You need to be efficient to make the most of what resources you have, including help.

3) Creativity not everything goes according to plan. Because of this fact, a basic requirement to become a chef is creativity. A chef must be able to make do with what’s available to him or her. A chef has to look at something and see a hundred different ways to use it in food. Creativity is required because chefs do not merely follow recipes but create them. A common requirement to become a chef in a restaurant is the ability to plan a menu. This means that you have to be able to come up with creative ways to present food.

4) Cleanliness since you will be handling food, a basic requirement to become a chef would be cleanliness. You need to make sure that the food you prepare will not pose any health hazards to your customers. One of the requirements to become a chef would be learning about germs and how to prevent them from invading the kitchen.

The Basic Steps to Consider

There are so many people who take interest in becoming chefs themselves. They know that the career is indeed rewarding. A chef is someone who is inventive and skilled when it comes to cooking a delicious meal and coming up with an artistic presentation of the cuisine. But then becoming a chef is not completed overnight. The education itself lasts for about four years and it takes quite a while to establish a credible reputation.

If you are serious and you want a career in line with becoming a chef, there are some important requirements that you need to fulfill. Here are a few pointers for you to consider:

In your high school years, find a work in a restaurant as a startup for your experience. It would not matter if you do not land in a cooking position. Anyway, you will get exposed to it. You will get to know how it feels as you work for a long duration of time.

Secondly, you could ask the guidance counselor in your school if there are existing training programs designed for chefs within your community.

Look into the available culinary schools, training programs, certification, apprenticeships, and related jobs that would open up the formal training and hands-on experience for you.

Decipher the type of cooking which you aim for and the kind of kitchen surroundings that you prefer to work in.

You must understand that landing in apprenticeship jobs will first require you to start at the basicsmost probably with the kitchen jobs. As you further your education you also gain a lot more experience and your job post likewise escalates.

Gain the certification from the American Culinary Federation.

Take up the related business courses if you intend to manage your own business.

Keep yourself updated with the latest cooking style and kitchen equipment.

Focus on a particular specialization.

Be very sure that this is what you want for a career.

As you have decided that you truly want to be a chef, you must get the proper education from a reputable cooking school. The training that you would get is very important. There are several different programs that you may enroll at and receive training and earn the experience from varying mentors. There are those vocational programs, four-year or two-year college programs. You may likewise opt to avail of the training courses offered by some large hotel and other related establishments.

The curriculum of the schools differs but most importantly, you earn your knowledge through the practical application. Through the trainings, the students are taught to properly broil, bake, and prepare the food. The rest of the kitchen jobs are well emphasized and taught. More so, as you take up the related courses that are required to become a chef, you will get educated with the proper management and care for the kitchen utensils and equipment.

Your job description as a chef would include creating, planning, and pricing the menus; prepare and then cook the dish as per the specifications of the customer; arrange and then garnish the dish prior to its serving; supervise the performance of your staff, deal with the suppliers, and a lot others. With these things to bear in mind, you will need to employ a good dose of courage, perseverance and discipline. It matters a lot that you are decided and focused so that you will come up with fulfilling the requirements to become a chef.

Learning How to Become a Chef

In order to learn how to become a chef, you need to first learn about the definition of the word “chef”. Most people would define the word “chef” as someone who cooks professionally for a living. However, you should know that learning how to cook is not the only thing you should do in order to learn how to become a chef. In order to learn how to become a chef, you must learn how to define a chef by the way that he or she sees food.

For a chef, food is not merely seen as “good” or “bad”. In learning how to become a chef, you need to learn about the different factors that need to be in food. You need to learn how to take aroma, taste, texture, appearance and other factors into consideration when creating a dish. In order to truly learn how to become a chef, you need to learn how these factors combine to make something people will love.

In order to learn how to become a chef, you need to know the fact that there are different types of chefs. You need to realize that in order to truly become a great chef, you need to know who you are. You need to be able to focus your skills in a specific area in order to truly improve. Learning how to become a chef requires you to examine yourself and where your interests lie. This will help you determine which types of foods you specialize in.

There are a lot of people who try to become jack of all trades and learn to specialize in different types of dishes. However, in order to achieve mastery, you need to focus. There are a few chefs today who have mastered the art of cooking two or three types of cuisines. Even focusing on such few can be quite confusing since different styles of cooking require one to adjust his or her taste buds often.

In order to learn how to become a chef, you need to learn how to create your own dish. The difference between a chef and a cook is the fact that while a cook follows recipes, a chef creates them. You need to become innovative. In order to learn how to become a chef, you need to learn how to ask the question, What if?

You need to constantly explore different tastes and textures in order to find different ways to improve your cooking. Only by becoming innovative can you learn how to become a chef. Remember that becoming a chef does not end when you are employed. Becoming a chef is a lifetime task. In order to learn how to become a chef, you need to realize that there is no beginning and end to the task. Becoming a chef is a way. The journey is what defines you.

Learning how to become a chef also demands patience. There are people born with the natural talent for cookery but even these people need to study hard. This is because learning how to become a chef can be a difficult road to travail. Some people think that the stirring and slicing involved in cooking is not really that hard to do. But in order to learn how to become a chef, you need to understand that you won’t employ these skills occasionally; you will be stirring and slicing every day of your life. This means that you had better be patient with each task and learn how to do it properly and reflexively.