Last year I followed a whim and became a professional baker at our local theme park for the summer. Interestingly enough, I beyond enjoyed the job and applied to bake again this summer.
This past Saturday was my first day back in the bakery, and boy howdy, was it ever a melee.
To start with, we have a bunch of new products that we are baking and offering. One cool thing about our little bakery in the park is that we bake everything we serve, from scratch, every single day. This is a pretty impressive feat because of the size of our bakery. At the end of every day I smile when I think about what we accomplish in our tiny space.
On top of having to learn all the new product while coming back after a six month break, we also had some extra fun. When I walked in the door on Saturday I noticed that there was a little fridge on top of our big counter top fridge. Yep, one of our fridges had bit the dust.
This made things even more fun as we are way short on space to begin with. But, we bakers at the park know how to adapt. It is our way of operating.
Another thing about this year that is different for me, is that I was promoted to lead baker. EEEEEEE! I mainly took the position because I wanted my supervisor to actually be able to take a day off and not have to worry about anything. Not that I am awesome, but I am really good at following directions, so you know, she seemed confident about the promotion anyway.
And after one day doing one station, yesterday learning all the new product and running the hard station, I was turned loose today supervising and running the bakery while also baking all the hardest stuff.
It was pretty fun!
Let's just say I was pretty dialed in this morning, and I had all my croissants, Danishes, and three different types of cinnamon rolls all made, baked, decorated, plated, and placed in the case in two and a half hours.
In fact, my co-worker kept marveling at how fast we were whipping through everything.
I smiled and told her we were just awesome. Okay, and I did a TON of baking the day before, and since the park isn't open seven days a week until next week, we didn't have to do any extra prep for the following day.
Pieces of cake.
That's not to say I wasn't incredibly pleased and relieved that everything went so well today. We are introducing a whole line of huckleberry pastries and huckleberries are incredibly expensive! One of my biggest pet peeves is wasting food, and I think it might crush my little Kat soul to waste anything with sacred huckleberries in it!
Plus, huckleberry cinnamon rolls are just gorgeous, so I want them to all turn out perfectly!
Of course, my bakery employment means that there might not be blog posts on those days. Yesterday, I worked so hard that I came home and fell asleep in my chair, just like my grandpa used to do. I totally understand now Papa.
But, I don't mind, because today, when I walked out and looked a the glorious baked goods that I created adorning the case in the park coffee shop, I felt all sorts of accomplished and awesome.
Cause baking is cool!
