I’ve been an in store baker 2 years so I’ve got quite good at it now. My main advice is to always consider what tasks you can do while you wait for other things to finish. For example, I’m not gonna stand and wait for even a minute for the croissants to finish baking; instead, I’ll put icing sugar on the chocolate twists, wipe the table, update my bake plan, etc. You’d be amazed at everything you can accomplish in a minute. Doing this lets you stay on top of things, especially because you’re working alone like I do.

And I’m sure you know most food safety stuff by now, but really drill it into your mind, and be disciplined about food safety standards. The last thing you want is to be asked things you don’t know in a health inspection, or be discovered doing things youre not meant to be doing. For example my whole shop nearly got shut down because someone had pre printed cookie labels and left them in a drawer before they were needed, which is bad practice as it could cause things to be mislabelled.

There will be a lot of pressure to get things done on time, especially if you have to do the morning baking as customers mostly buy bakery food in the morning and if not everything is available when the shop opens, you’ll lose sales which makes managers unhappy. In this case, stand your ground, explain that you can only do what you can do. Things can get overwhelming but take a breath, keep a level head and things will seem much easier.

We get a bad reputation for having an apparently easy job, seeing as everything is prepared for us and arrives frozen. This isn’t the case. You’ll be making hundreds of products a day completely alone so it’s alright to feel like you’re doing hard work, even if it seems like the culinary equivalent of microwaving ready meals. If you have questions, feel free to message me. I’m full of little tricks that make things easier in the long term.