Requirements to Become a Pastry Chef

As the name suggests, a pastry chef is a professional employed in a food preparation facility, who is responsible for making all kinds of specialized baked products. Some people take up this career backed up by their hobby, without considering the job and salary prospects.

A keen interest in this job is what makes this career exciting. Pastry chefs are experts in culinary arts and need to be physically fit for carrying out their routine work.

Depending on the facility they have to provide services in, they may need to prepare all sorts of cakes, cookies, desserts, and chocolates. The requirements to become a pastry chef are stringent, in terms of gaining experience initially. In the upcoming slides, we are going to discuss more about becoming a pastry chef.

Pasty chefs have to make sure that the foodstuffs they prepare remain fresh until they reach the hands of customers, which is mostly early morning. Owing to this requirement, these professionals have to get up at early morning hours, somewhere around three or four and start their work.

Those considering this career need to think about this requirement. An individual who cannot put on the habit of waking up this early will not be able to be a good pastry chef. Since pastry chefs need to do a lot of work with their hands, they need to be hygiene conscious.

Common standing tasks include kneading dough, operating the oven, decorating exotic desserts for guests, and keeping the kitchen clean. A pastry chef needs to have a good attention to detail as well, since just a small mistake in the preparation, and the delicacy can be messed up.

Those looking forward to this career need to be creative enough to come up with new recipes and desserts.

Decide if you want to go in for formal culinary arts training or gain direct on-the-job experience. There is no formal requirement as such for getting a job as a pastry chef, but a high school diploma is required by most employers.

Going through professional education and training substantially increases the salary and promotion prospects. To get an entry-level job, you can opt for a certificate or an associate degree in culinary arts.

For better job prospects in big hotels and cruises, the education needed to become a pastry chef would be a bachelor's or a master's degree. These courses focus on baking and cooking basics, creative chocolate designs, preparing different styles and types of cakes and pastries...

... decorating desserts, maintaining cleanliness and safety in the kitchen, and other related lessons. The educational curriculum also consists practical trainings which simulate working in the exact conditions of a kitchen. This would help you get an idea about the detailed pastry chef job description and increase your artistic abilities.

Apprenticeship programs are also available from the American Culinary Federation (ACF), which usually take somewhere around two to three years to complete. This institution administers 14 certification levels in the field of culinary arts, classified according to certain skills and experience requirements for completion.

In the meantime, you will also need to develop your managerial skills. This is because pastry chefs are given the responsibility of handling all matters of the kitchen such as managing inventory of raw materials and supervising other chefs.

You may not get the job of a pastry chef as soon as you have gained the required educational qualifications. You will have to start out at a pastry assistant or a baker's level and then move on to a higher post.

For the job of pastry chef, at entry level, along with possessing the educational degrees, being physical fit to do the everyday work in the kitchen is a main requirement. The entry-level salary of a pastry chef is between $30,000 - $45,000.