Chef School Review is a guide to chef schools offering education, diplomas, and degree programs (including Le Cordon Bleu Culinary Programs) in cooking and culinary arts.

By Chef Mardav
Chef School Review Columnist

The baker is a kind of master chef whose training at a baking and pastry school leads to a very special career. Whether you choose to attend a bread baking school or go for the fine arts approach to baking at a pastry school, baking jobs waiting for you.

Of course, if you are interested in following a baking career, you probably have already started baking at home. Here are a few tips from Chef Mardav that you can apply even before you take your very first baking course.

Let the Yeast Rise

A friend of mine who teaches at a baking school in California pointed out that the instructions on some yeast packages show as little as 15 minutes as adequate time for the yeast "proving" stage. That is the step in which the yeast is added to warm water and sugar and allowed to ferment. That is not enough time for the real yeast flavors to develop. That proving stage should go on for a minimum of an hour. The result will be a richer tasting bread.

How Much is Too Much?

A chef I worked with who is now at a baking school in New York make his first year baking class students do the first round of mixing while standing on one leg. He says that the tendency is to mix too much while the dough is being prepared.

Too much mixing pushes the gasses out of the dough and makes it tough. Too little kneading doesn't allow the wheat gluten to develop. Of course, you'll learn all that in your baking training.

About the Author

Chef Mardav wandered into his mother's kitchen when he was seven years old. He liked what he discovered there and he has been spending time in kitchens ever since.

Posted on April 4, 2005 at 2:04 PM

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