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Steven Cavalleiro
Mrs. April Davala
Honors English 12
March 4, 2011
Pastry Chef
! “A pastry chef works to make desserts appeal to the eye as well as the taste.”
(Craigmyle/Corbis) Due to peopleʼs increased interest and consumption of pastries,
there has been much more coverage about creating and decorating pastries and cakes.
Cake decorating offers a variety of different designs that catch peopleʼs eyes all around
the world.
! It is very hard to put a date on when cake mixing, baking, and decorating began.
It is thought to be around 1175 B.C.(“The Essential”) For centuries in Europe, families
practiced bread baking and created their own deserts. The art of pasty was made
mainly by artists who sold their pieces to the rich and wealthy (Boyce). The ancient
Greeks created the art of baking by specific recipes and shapes of bread (MacLauch-
lan). Babylonians taught the Egyptianʼs the art of baking (“The Essential”). Most pastries
have Mediterranean roots, due to the Ottoman Empire. There is a legend that croissants
were created in Vienna and Austria to celebrate the successful repulsion of the Ottoman
invaders. The crescent shape of the croissant mimicked the crescent on the Ottoman
flag (Boyce). Before cakes were served in weddings, they made their first appearance in
England during the reign of Elizabeth I (“The Essential”). Puff paste is an invention of
Renaissance cooks. Sicily has been one of the original providers of almond paste. For

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centuries, almond paste was Sicilyʼs greatest export, prized as far north as the royal
courts of Scandinavia (Boyce).
! Pastry chefs are on the front line of the culinary world. The career of a pastry
chef has risen from a subordinate taskmaster to a prominent leader in Americaʼs finest
cafes, restaurants and bakeries (MacLauchlan). Pastry chefs do not only make cakes
and cookies, they also make bread (“Culinary”). A pastry chefʼs day may include, meet-
ing with other chefs to discuss the menu as well as testing and evaluating new pastries
they make and recipes and ordering supplies from various vendors. In addition, they
prepare a budget for the pastry department and provide training and educational
classes on pastries are also part of a pastry chefʼs repertoire (“Job”).
! Pastry chefs can work in restaurants, large hotels, bistros, casinos, and baker-
ies. The Chef de Cuisine is the highest chef in his field. They make the menu dishes
and choose the food direction. An executive chef works directly under the Chef de Cui-
sine. The executive chef creates the recipes, controls the cost of pastries, and performs
other responsibilities. The second in charge is the Sous chef. He makes sure the food is
correct and up to their standard, and he also makes sure it is delivered on time. A pastry
chef is the highest person in the pastry section, and only reports to the executive or
sous chef. A head chef makes sure everyone is doing his or her job properly. The chef
that oversees a section is called the Chef de Partie. The Commis chefs are the ones
that do the majority of cooking (“Job”).
! Cakes, chocolates, pies and cookies have become a natural part of menus and
celebrations (“Culinary”). Most business and food industries consider the arts of pastry
to be included in the world of chocolate, pastries, cookies, cakes and confections

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(Boyce). French and Indian renaissance chefs are credited for perfecting puff pastry and
choux. In the 17th and 18th centuries, chefs introduced new recipes, such as Napole-
ons, Cream Puffs, and Eclairs (Olver). A napoleon pastry is a french pastry that is made
of three layers; a vanilla layer, a cream layer, and a custard layer. It is then put all to-
gether consisting of three different fillings. The napoleon is then then topped with either
fondant or icing. They then drizzle chocolate on top and make it look like a dripping ef-
fect. It is a very elegant pastry that is quite tasty. Cream puffs are made out of puff pas-
try. The special batter that renaissance chefs used made the puff hollow and elegant.
After the puff was finished, they had to use a piping bag and make a hole to insert the
filling. The filling could then be made out of pastry cream or pudding. An eclair is a long
puff pastry, which is hollow inside, much like the cream puff. After it is done baking they
had to pipe the filling inside of it. They used either pastry cream, whipped cream or cus-
tard. It is then topped with icing, the icing is usually chocolate. After the chocolate is
smeared onto the cake it is then drizzled with vanilla icing. Belgian chocolate is known
as the finest type of chocolate due to the ingredients (Boyce).
! Cakes in the early twentieth century were raised in layers and pillars. Pillars
make the tiered cakes even bigger; the pillars can sometimes make a cake almost 10
feet tall. Wedding cakes have the longest tradition and how they changed the history of
cake decorating into an art. The tradition of the bride and groom cutting the cake to-
gether came from New England. When British cakes were covered in several layers of
hard royal icing, they used a sword to cut the cake and the icing was extremely hard so
the groom used to have to help the bride cut the cake. Now specially decorated cakes
are served to celebrate many different occasions, such as weddings, christenings, anni-

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versaries, birthdays, engagements, and Christmas. Christmas cakes have a very long
history; they were baked by the rich in the 18th century as Twelfth Night cakes (“The
Essential”). The Twelfth Night was a famous gathering in England. It was a Feast of the
Epiphany, celebrating the arrival of the three kings from the Far East. Birthday cakes
also have a very long tradition. Everybody gets a cake for his or her birthday. Now
cakes have different toppings, including fondant, icing, dirty icing and sometimes even
custard. They have cool and elegant designs due to the new techniques that have been
discovered.
! Thousands of years ago the ancient Greeks were baking cakes and decorating
them to appease their angry gods, and to celebrate special occasions. The five fine arts
of cake decorating are sculpture, painting, poetry, music, and architecture. (“The Essen-
tial”). Sculpture is very important in the cake decorating field. A pastry chef must use
sculpture to draw designs and put all different patterns on a cake to make it appealing to
the eye. Painting is another very important part of cake decorating. A pastry chef must
use painting to color the cake and make it the colors that people like and want. Poetry
displayed on a cake can symbolize the art form of emotion, giving the cake a more ap-
pealing stature. Architecture is a big key to building the cakes. A pastry chef has to
make sure that the cake is sturdy enough to hold all the tiers on it. A pastry chef has to
know what tools to use to make the cake straight and even. A pastry chef must know
how to balance a cake properly and make it able to be steady and balanced. One also
needs architecture to build high tiered cakes. If you are making a six tiered cake it has
to be build properly so the tiers flow into the all the other tiers and make sure it does not
fall.

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! Cake decorating calls for some special ingredients and equipment (“The Essen-
tial”). Some equipment used in cake decorating consists of many different shapes and
designs. They include pots, cake smoothers, brushes, flower nails, icing colors, piping
gel, spatulas, stencils, turn tables, piping tips, fondant, rolling pin, cake lifter, cookie cut-
ters and buttercream. A cake smoother is a plastic hand held tool to smooth the icing on
the cake and make everything even around the whole cake. It is also used to put icing
on the cake in big piles. Brushes are a key tool to cake decorating, their are many dif-
ferent sizes of brushes. Brushes are used to paint objects on to cakes and to color the
whole entire cake. A flower nail is a big nail that rotates. It is a tool used to design a
flower on to it. Icing colors are extremely important. It is used to color the entire cake. It
colors all the icing and fondant that covers the cake. Piping gel is used to draw on the

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cake. Piping gel is also used to write on the cake and draw objects. It is very sweet but
eatable. Stencils are designs that basically get pushed onto the icing and it leaves the
impression of the design. Turntables are used to cover/ ice the whole cake quickly and
evenly. Turntables provide a circular motion making it easier to smear icing on the cake
and level it off evenly. Piping tips are used for many different reasons. They are so
many different piping tips that do many different designs and shapes. Piping tips are
used to cover the borders of a cake and give it a unique design. They are also used for
making designs on the cake like grass or water. Piping tips are the biggest part to cake
decorating. There is not one cake that does not have to use piping in. Piping tips give
the cake nice designs. Fondant is what covers the cake to give it a professional look
and very appealing to the eye. Fondant is very easy to color and design, because fon-
dant is hard, even and does not break easily. A rolling pin is used for many things; roll-
ing pins are used to flatten fondant, spread out the dough and do many other things. A
rolling pin makes it very easy to flatten things. It flattens the fondant very easily, but it
takes time getting the fondant even, it takes a lot of time and patience. Cake lifters are
very self explanatory. It lifts cakes easily so one can move them around and place them
on top of things. The tool is also used to scrape icing off of the cake easily and quickly. It
gives it a smooth finish and it makes it very appealing to the eye. It also saves a lot of
your icing. Cookie cutters are an essential part to cake decorating. They are used to
shape dough and all different kind of baking needs. There specially used to make cool
shapes out of cookies that you can add to the cake and make it have more of a design
and more appealing to the eye. Buttercream is a big essential to cakes and decorating

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them. Buttercream is very simply to make but takes time. Buttercream is used to maker
borders around the cake and a nicer design.
! Now cakes can be eight feet tall and covered in flowers, fountains of champagne
and even figures of the bride and groom. Cake decorating is not difficult; it requires a lot
of patience, time, and attention to detail. Cake tins are lined to prevent cakes sticking to
them during baking and to give the cake protection from heat of the oven. Marzipan is
used under icing to give it a good taste. Sugar sculpting began in Italy in the 17th cen-
tury. Sugar paste gives the cake soft edges, and gives it modern delicate design. Sugar
paste is also known as soft icing or rolled fondant. Sugar paste is soft pliable, easily
colored and shaped. Fondant is a cream confection used for covering the cakes, and
pastries. Fondant is easily shaped, colored, and designed. Royal icing starts off running
but sets to a very hard finish. It is ideal for piping intricate lines, shapes, and even fig-
ures. Piping is a cone shaped hand held bag that holds icing inside. Piping is used
along the edge of the cake and all the corners to make the design even. Todays fabu-
lous cakes are spread with rich icings of chocolate, cream or eggs, including sugar
flowers and tiny figures, covered in piping (“The Essential”).
! According to Sarah Gasparre, her inspiration came from her mother teaching her
how to bake when she was very young. When she started to grow up she realized that
she loved baking so much that she wanted to become a baker herself. She attended
culinary school at culinary academy of Long Island where she realized that “It was a lot
of work.” According to Sarah, the techniques behind baking come mainly from having
the right equipment. While working in a bakery her hours were all over the place. She
would be there at 7:00pm at night and stayed till 2:00am in the morning. The perks of

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the job and I quote “Seeing peopleʼs reactions after you spent hours on end making a
beautiful creation is very rewarding and satisfying.” According to Sarah, “It is a very in-
tricate process behind baking because you are not able to speed the process up, pa-
tience is a virtue.” “Every cake and pastry needs preparation and time to fully bake and
cool.” “Decorating can be a delicate process because you want everything to look per-
fect and appetizing to your customers.”
! There are many schools that offer training in the field of culinary/pastry
professions. Pastry chefs need to be able to bake. They have to pay close attention to
detail. They also need an artistic ability and creativity to produce pastries and desserts
that look and taste great (“Pastry Chef”). A number of chefs attend independent cooking
schools or professional culinary institutes. They attend either a two or a four year col-
lege with a hospitality or culinary arts department (“Bureau”). One of the most famous
culinary arts school is Le Cordon Bleu. It was created in 1895 and is still around
(Boyce). There are many different schools from state to state that offer this profession in
their schools. Some large hotels and restaurants actually offer their own training and job
placement programs for pastry chefs and head cooks (“Bureau”). The things they teach
them in these schools are the daily activities that a pastry chef goes through. Which in-
clude responsibility for creating baked goods and desserts. Also that they can prepare
desserts and bread from scratch. They have a responsibility for cost control and inven-
tory, and they are responsible for creating recipes (“Culinary”).
! In conclusion, a pastry chef has come a long way in the field of baking. Now that
there are more techniques involved it has become more difficult to join the field of
culinary. A pastry chef is still growing and will always grow because the people will find

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new techniques that will challenge a pastry chef; Pastry chefs will have to become an
expert to these new techniques and find out more of their own.