subject: How to Get Started as a Professional Pastry Chef [print this page] How to Get Started as a Professional Pastry Chef
If you are like many enthusiastic cooks, you have entertained the notion of becoming a pastry chef for living at one time or another. Good for you. It is a good field with excellent pay, outstanding recognition, and constant demand for your skills. But if you're like most, you're probably wondering how you can get started in this exciting field. You probably can't immediately quit your current job to attend culinary school. However, you can do the next best thing: find an apprenticeship ' a local restaurant or bakery willing to train you to make cakes and other fine desserts in exchange for working in the shop. It's a good thing. It will give you the experience you need to get started.Depending on where you live, you may not be able to find an apprenticeship as advertised in your local area. Although they may seem difficult to find, rest assured, they are there; you may have to just look a bit harder. Try to locate a bakeshop or fine dining restaurant in your local area and ask to speak with the chef in charge face-to-face for an informal insterview. Tell the chef in charge how serious and dedicated you are towards your goal of becoming a pastry chef. Rather than ask for the job outright, seek their advice instead. You'll be surprised how many times the head chef will either offer you a job on the spot or know of one available with another local restaurant.When you get this kind of lucky break, make the most of it. Put an extra long hours and show the head chef has serious you are about your career. Study all of the written material about cake making and decorating that you can get your hands on. Also make sure to ask the head chef plenty of intelligent questions and put his answers to use right away. The chef will definitely be impressed with your industriousness; he will reward your hard work in the form of special help in your career down the road: becoming a pastry chef.Do an outstanding job as a local apprentice, and with the help of the people who believed in you, it will surely lead to bigger and better things. Later on your career, it could even lead to an opportunity to attend a big time school of the culinary arts. These types of schools can be found in many places but most often you find them in major metropolitan areas.However, if you can't afford to quit your job right away and you are able to travel to get the apprenticeship that you need, don't lose heart. Many people just like you are in the same situation and have gone on to become professional pastry chefs despite the career obstacles. And they got their start by taking a cake making course online at a very low cost. You can do the same.If you stay the course of your career goal, you'll enjoy the outstanding pay and professional recognition that accompanies becoming a pastry chef. Many training choices are available, so you'll want to shop around for the best training at the most sensible price for you. With heart and determination, you too can enjoy the recognition (not to mention good pay) that comes with becoming a pastry chef.
