It certainly has been a few hectic weeks in the bakery. Our full time workers were shifted to other stores, we were without a full capacity of help for a period of time, and those of us left have had to step up and make the bake shop run properly. I have had to fill all roles during the week and one point or another. I was the cake decorator, I was the overnight worker, I was the department head, I was the grunt, and for a while I was running the show by myself.
It's no excuse for an absence from my readers, but these times have been hard. Still, even with the down economy and lack of workers, our bakery is up a couple thousand dollars from where it was at this point last year; a true success considering the fact that the rest of the departments in the store are down in sales. Today I am going to give you a little something different...this is the course of a 19 hour shift working completely by yourself in a Stop & Shop Bakery (times are not typical, but I had to rush due to the lack of assistance).
3 A.M.: Arriving at the bakery in the dead of the night when the rest of the world is sleeping is part of this process. The overnight job consists of baking everything off for the morning rush and breads for the day. My job during the overnight is to come in and start by setting up bakery racks with items that cook in similar ways (i.e. partially baked products, frozen bread products, frozen rolls, pastries, etc.)
3:20 A.M.: After the bakery products have all been separated and set aside the process of cooking them begins. First off come the items that need to go in the proofer. A proofer, for those who are unaware, is a large machine that is pretty much a sauna for breads. It hurries the process of bread dough growth. All the items, such as seeded scali breads, Italian breads, croissants, and other items needing to rise are placed into this large metal chamber. Inside there is steam heated to approximately 170 degrees that causes the dough to rise at a faster rate. All the items will be left in the proofer for approximately one hour.
3:35 A.M.: Next comes the baking process itself. In our bakery there are two large ovens capable of fitting a six-foot high rack inside. The first item needing to be cooked is the muffins. Muffins that we cook are pre-distributed. They are placed in the oven at 375 degrees for 45 minutes. In the second oven go the partially baked bagels. The bagels are the easiest part of the job. The go in the oven at 400 degrees for five minutes.
3:40 A.M.: Time to remove all the older product from the sales floor. Starting with the self-service cases (bagels, pastries, and rolls) we take all the products from the plastic bins and throw them into cardboard boxes to mark as "Yesterday's Bake" (discounted bakery products marked half the price that they were the day before).
3:45 A.M.: The bagels come out of the oven and are set aside in the back room to cool. Time for the partially baked breads to go in the oven. The large and small French breads are placed in the second oven at the same 400 degrees for 18 minutes.
3:50 A.M.: The old breads need to come off the wall. The necessary work now is to remove all of the older breads that the bake shop itself makes (large and small French breads, Italian bread, and scali bread). All of these will be removed from their plastic sleeves and placed in a refuse bin being sent to a local farm for pig feed. Luckily due to our large amount of sales we rarely have much bread left over.
4:03 A.M.: The French breads are finished and the final partially baked items (European rolls, Portuguese rolls, and grinder rolls) are placed in the oven for 4 minutes.
4:05 A.M.: All of the "Yesterday's Bake" items are moved to the rack for the discounted items.
4:07 A.M.: The rolls are finished! Time to begin putting out the baked products. Rolls will, obviously, be last considering that they just came out of the oven. Self-serve bagels are filled, French breads are bagged, labeled, and placed into their respective baskets. Finally, those rolls are placed in their specified glass case waiting for the day.
4:20 A.M.: The proofed items are taken from the proofer and moved to the floor. They will wait several minutes to dry off before going into the oven. The muffins are completed and then are moved on to the floor for cooling. The muffin oven is reset to 400 degrees for other items.
4:25 A.M.: Vendor items. The most tedious part of the job. Stop & Shop receives bread in the bake shop from two outside sources: Chabaso Baking Company and Gold Medal Bread Products. Hundreds of breads from each company arrive and it is my job to remove all the old bread from the day before and make note of how much didn't sell. The purpose of that is to change the amount of breads coming in as well as factor how much is left over for a crediting of our payments. From that point I must recognize and label each of those hundreds of breads and place them in their respective spots on the bread wall. Very annoying process.
5:00 A.M.: Time for the proofed items to go into the oven. The pastries go first. Several varieties of croissants, turnovers, cinnamon rolls, and butterfly pastries are placed in the oven at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Scali bread, scali rolls, and kaiser rolls are placed in the second oven for 20 minutes. For larger bread and rolls, though they have just been in a proofer meant to steam them, there is a steam knob on our ovens meant to help these breads raise just a bit more and crisp their outer crusts. We turn it on for these breads for approximately 60 seconds.
5:15 A.M.: Labels are printed for the breads that will be coming out. Time for the muffins to go out into the self-service case. The muffins have cooled enough by this point that they pop right out of their container without breaking. They are placed in their respective trays in the case. Currently Stop & Shop has 21 kinds of muffins and we bake approximately 30 of each. That is 630 muffins for one day!
5:35 A.M.: The first round of breads and pastries are finished. They are placed on the floor to cool. There are two full racks of Italian bread, 36 per rack, for a total of 72 breads. Over the course of a day we sell, on average, 176 Italian breads. To prepare an Italian bread you have to take a knife and drag it from right to left across the top (not too deep) so that the inner dough explodes out to create an artisan look. After slicing the breads the 2 racks are placed in the ovens at 400 degrees for 20 minutes. Steam is applied again for 60 seconds.
5:45 A.M.: Every bag is labeled for the breads for the day.
5:55 A.M.: Hot fresh Italian bread fresh out of the oven!
6:00 A.M.: Another tedious process is the slicing of scali bread. Scali bread is the awkward, knot-shaped bread that you see on bakery walls. We have a bread slicer, but the thing is ancient (it was literally in the store before I was born in 1987..you do the math). Scali breads are one of our more popular sellers. We prepare about 100 per day. Slicing each one at a time is annoying.
6:45 A.M.: The scali breads are done and it's time to bag all the breads. This is a fairly easy process, but it takes a long time.
7:30 A.M.: All the breads are placed on the wall making sure labels are lined up and bags are neat. I do not know why we do this because honestly our customers wreck them like animals. Nevertheless, the department looks beautiful.
7:45 A.M.: The final step in this job process is to place the pastries in the self-service case. They smell good and look better.
By 8:00 A.M. the first phase of the job is completed. The overnight bake is done. Next I will tell you the next step of the process: Sweet Goods.
TO BE CONTINUED:
Stay Sweet,
Lil' Buddy
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