What Do Pastry Chefs Do?

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Maybe you’ve seen them on reality TV shows like Top Chef Just Desserts, or maybe you’ve just always wondered who creates those amazing baked goods, candies, and confections that are on the desert tray at your favorite restaurant. Being a pastry chef can be a fun and exciting career, and in today’s climate, jobs for Chefs of any style are all the vogue. Let’s look at what pastry chefs do so you can learn more about this fascinating career and give you more information to help you decide whether pastry chef is a job you might want to pursue.

Are Pastry Chefs and Bakers the Same?

Many people think that the term pastry chef is just a fancy name for a baker. While it’s easy to make this mistake, they are very different. In one way, you can think of the baker like the professional painter. They are skilled at their craft, but what they paint are usually large areas with no fine detail. Sure, there may be times when they get to paint patterns on the surfaces, but usually what they paint are large and straightforward.

Like the professional painter, the baker is skilled at their craft and they will typically bake breads and other large-scale items. Sometimes they will bake cakes and other pastries, but they will typically be doing more of the rough work. When it comes time to work on details—the art of pastry as opposed to the craft—the pastry chef will take over. The pastry chef is like the artist, they have all the technical skills of the professional painter, but they also have more refined skills, and in most cases, a more keen sense of art than the baker.

OK, So What do Pastry Chefs do Every Day?

Among the chief differences between a baker and a pastry chef is that little term chef. In professional kitchens, the term chef carries with it certain unspoken connotations. In most restaurants, only a chef, i.e. someone who has completed culinary school, can be in charge of any group of kitchen workers. The head pastry chef will be in charge of overseeing the entire pastry team and this includes a lot of managerial work. The head pastry chef will be responsible for hiring and firing the pastry staff, ordering supplies and equipment, and designing the dessert menu for the restaurant.

Once the dessert menu is designed, the other pastry chefs are instructed in the correct preparation and presentation of the desserts. It will typically be these lower level pastry chefs who are responsible for the day-to-day preparation and presentation of the items designed by the head pastry chef.

Pastry chefs are the dessert artists of the professional kitchen. What pastry chefs do differs from what bakers do in the level of detail and artistry applied—they both work with baked goods, but the pastry chef will also work with candy and other non-baked confections. If this sounds like a career you might want to pursue, your next step is to contact your local culinary school and get more information on their pastry program.