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Do you require baking skills to function well in your job role? This article provides a guide on how you can develop the skills and include them on your resume.

 

What are Baking Skills?

Baking skills are the wide range of skills that any professional that bakes varieties of pastries such as cake, bread, pies, cookies, and many more should have. These skills are very much essential because they are required in restaurants, confectionary cafes, or private companies. Bakers utilize these skills to determine the right ingredients and also the quantity of the ingredients. Baking skills demand a lot of creativity to make pastries and also communicate with a team.

Baking skills are not inherent skills, you need to pass through formal training such as a culinary school or a technical college to receive accreditation and the skills that are required for the role. You may also receive internship training once you get a job placement, this is because every organization has its own standards and they will need to train you to adapt to them. Once you possess baking skills, you can be an all-around baker or you may specialize as a bread baker, cake baker, or pastry baker.

 

Examples of Baking Skills

Cake Baking

Cake baking is the most important baking skill because it is one of the most popular desserts that is often served at special events. Cake baking demands some essential ingredients and time, but it also demands a stipulated step to get amazing results. The result of cake baking is always awesome and delicious. Cake baking is a very great skill to have if you want to make beautiful and sumptuous cakes that will attract people. It is also a great skill to have if you want to maximize profits by making cakes for special events.

Bread Making

Breadmaking is an important skill because it allows you to regulate ingredients and the quality or quantity of bread for consumption. It is also a great way to maximize profit because most people consume bread for breakfast, and making it at home is a great way to save money. Homemade bread can be made to your taste, and you can also make it much healthier. Making your bread is a very excellent way to harness more skills and enjoy homemade delicious bread.

Pastry Making

Pastry making is a very important baking skill because it involves the creation of pies, burgers, dough, batters, and other ingredients used to make baked snacks. Pastry-making skills include knowing how to mix ingredients, and how to handle and roll out the pastry to the desired shape. Pastry-making skills are very much essential because they help to ensure that baked goods are made with the best ingredients and correctly.

 

Importance of baking Skills

It boosts your Creativity

Baking skills is very much paramount because it builds your creativity. Baking is a skill that has to do with a lot of brainstorming. For instance, you must first brainstorm the kind of cake you want to make, and then you will proceed to think of the right design that will make the cake beautiful. You need to use your creativity to get the right kind of design that will suit your cake. The best way to achieve this is by utilizing design tools and various patterns to boost your creativity.

 Development of Decision-making Abilities

Baking skills are scientific skill because it involves experimenting to get the best results. Baking skills demand that you experiment with different flavors and baking procedures to decide which one is the most acceptable. You need to also ensure that the recipe you are using is loved by your clients and hence it is no exaggeration to say that baking helps you make the right decision.

Development of your Sense Organ

Baking skills are very special because they enhance our senses of smell, feeling, and touch. Baking enables you to feel the flour or the consistency of the dough, you can also touch it to feel if it is okay or not. Once you start baking, you can perceive the smell or aroma, and this will enable you to know if the cake in the oven is done or not. Baking develops your cognitive ability, which is the brain, the result is that you will have a smart and bright brain. Excellent bakers are known to have a good sense of smell, an impeccable sense of taste, excellent smell, sight to touch, and excellent sound to listen to if kitchen appliances are working or not.

Amazing Health benefits

Baking skills allow you to utilize any ingredient you like, you can control this by reducing the number of ingredients or powerful preservatives you use in cooking. You can utilize healthy ingredients such as fruits and nuts to bake. Baking skills enable you to consume healthy snacks or cakes that are highly nutritious for the body.

 

How to Improve your Baking Skills

Continue your learning

As a professional baker, you need to keep up updating your knowledge, especially in the aspects of design and decoration because new trends emerge every time. This can be achieved by you learning baking skills, learning different culinary styles, and also creative methods of cooking. You can also study baking modules or watch videos online to update your knowledge. Another way is to pursue learning opportunities such as workshops, instructional courses, and programs that allow collaboration and mentoring.

Experiment while baking

You should not depend on one methodology while baking but try to experiment with different methods to enhance your baking skills. Taking different approaches can help you test various factors and also access results. For instance, you can experiment with your recipes by being innovative to create different cake recipes. This will help you accomplish your task faster and increase your culinary experience.

Research baking

Conducting your research about baking is very essential because it can help you to enhance your current baking skills and also help you learn new ideas. For instance, you will need to research the popular and best practices and include them in your daily recipes. Conducting research will help you to be creative and increase your productivity as a baker.

Utilize quality baking Tools

Baking skills cannot be complete without baking tools; you need to utilize quality baking tools to get the best results. Examples of baking tools are Mixers, ovens, baking pans, mixing bowls, and many more. This will make your baking much easy and give you a tremendous result at the end of the day.

Follow the recipe thoroughly

This may seem obvious but it is very important, you need to read the recipe thoroughly before you start baking. This way you can get to know the ingredients and the accurate measurement of the ingredient, the steps involved, and the appropriate baking time. This will help you avoid any surprises and ensure that you get one of the best baking results. You should ensure that you follow the recipe back to back and once you have mastered the basics, you can start experimenting with different ingredients and flavor combinations.

Be patient

Baking requires a lot of time and patience because baking and decorating take time. Do not be tempted to open the oven frequently, as this could hamper your baking results. This will let out the heat and cause your baked goods to become overcooked, or it will make them not rise. A baker must be very patient to allow desserts to be baked.

 

Jobs that Require Baking Skills

• Baker: a baker is a job that demands baking skills because a baker is responsible for baking cakes, bread, and pastries. This job demands that you possess excellent baking skills to accomplish it. A baker can work in confectionaries or high-rated restaurants, he must engage in professionalism to get the best result.
• Chef: A chef is a professional cook who works in a restaurant or food service. A chef needs to possess baking skills because he will need to bake cake desserts, bread, and other pastries for clients. A chef does not only bake but also cook other sumptuous meals for customers, one of the most important culinary skill of a chef is baking. A chef can also work in the home of an influential person in society.
• Food vendor: A food vendor delivers food from one place to another but it is strictly based on the order he gets from clients. A food vendor must know how to bake or must possess baking skills in order because some food vendors prepare food. This baking skill is important to deliver baking products to clients.

 

How to Include Baking Skills on Your Resume

• Describe Your Experience: the best way to showcase your baking skills is to describe your experience baking from your previous work placement. You should highlight your years of baking and what you have accomplished so far. You should also go further to describe how you contributed to your previous work and how your hard work increase the productivity of the organization. The heart of baking is cake, if you cannot bake cakes then your skills are deficient as a baker. Focus on the cake as one of your best baking products before describing bread and pastries
• Emphasis on Teamwork Skills: As a professional baker, you cannot work in isolation. You will need to work with a team of bakers or chefs to accomplish a baking project. You should describe your ability to work with another team of bakers because there are large baking projects that you cannot accomplish alone as a baker.
• Highlight Your Skills: At this juncture, you need to highlight the skills you possess as a baker. These skills are very much important, start with the most important skill before the least important. There are both hard skills and soft skills, ensure you focus on the practical skill which is the hard skill. You can highlight the following baking skills:
• Cake baking
• Bread making
• Pastry making
• Icing & Decoration
• Food Safety
• Food preparation
• Menu planning
• Cost control
• Customer service
• Kitchen management
• Baking machinery operation
• Knowledge of baking chemistry
• Paying attention to detail
• Organization
• Adaptability
• Composure under pressure
• Creativity
• Patience
• Self-management

 

Examples of How to Include Baking Skills in Your Resume

Baker Resume

Education

Atlanta Culinary Art School, GA, Baking Arts Associate Degree Specialty: Pastries and Cakes (2014)

Work Experience

Head Baker, Sweet and Wheat Bakery Atlanta, GA July 2016-Dec 2018

• Operatedbakery goods production schedule and supervised daily product orders
• Prepared ingredients to deliver to up to 200 Customers per day
• Oversaw quality checks of bread and pastries
• Supervised a team of 5 bakers
• Prepared a variety of baked goods, including bread, pastries, cookies, and sweet rolls
• Operated baking machinery, including ovens and slicing  machines, and ensure machine safety
• Formulated a recipe for the best-selling bread of 2018 at Sweet and Wheat Bakery.

 Chef Resume April 2014- September 2016

• Cooked seafood menu items in a timely and efficient way
• Baked desserts such as cakes and pastries for customers
• Baked a big cake for a special event that was held at the restaurant
• Liaised with wait staff and front-house employees and notified them about menu changes and specials
• Prepared all food to client satisfaction including accounting for specialized dietary concerns
• Reduced order-to-table by 17% with the execution of a new lobster tank solution.

 

How to Demonstrate Baking Skills in an Interview

• Discuss your baking experience elaborately and also your key achievements from your previous workplace
• Be very practical when answering the questions and show that you are willing to learn more
• Maintain eye contact with the interviewer and be very plain when answering the question
• You should also be prompt in your response to avoid giving the interviewer a negative impression
• Ask questions to show the interviewer that you are interested in the conversation
• Demonstrate that you are customer-centric, this will give the interviewer the impression that you will always put customer satisfaction first when baking
• Showcase your passion for health and overall body nutrition
• Keep a warm smile on your face
• Take a bow and say thank you at the end of the interview session.

 

Example of Interview Questions to Test Baking Skills

• Are you conversant with the process of kneading dough?
• What are some of the most essential safety procedures that bakers need to follow?
• How do you measure ingredients when baking?
• What is your best type of baked good to make and why?
• Give an elaborate example of a time when you have to troubleshoot a recipe to ensure it turned out correctly.
• What will you do if you observed that a fellow baker was not following safety procedures?
• How well are you good at following written recipes?
• Do you have any experience baking with large industrial ovens?
• What makes a good pastry?
• What do you think are the most important skills a baker needs to have?
• How regularly do you maintain your baking equipment?
• If you discover a new trend in baking, how will you adopt it into your work?
• What is your opinion is the most challenging part of baking?

 

 

 

Resume Skills