Baker
- This article refers to the cooking profession. For other uses, see Baker (disambiguation)
A baker is someone who primarily bakes and sells bread. Cakes and similar foods may also be produced, as the traditional boundaries between what is produced by a baker as opposed to a pastry chef have blurred in recent decades. The place where a baker works is called a bakehouse, bakeshop, or bakery.
History of baking
Egyptians
The first group of people to bake bread were ancient Egyptians, in 2600-2100 BC. It was believed that they learnt their skills from the Babylonians. In the royal bakery of Ramesses, bread and cakes were often made in shapes of animals and used for sacrifices.
The Roman Empire
The Greek culture influenced the Romans a lot after the Egyptians. From there, Bakery was transformed and flourished. The Romans were lusty and festive, soon the art of Bakering were a highly respected profession during the fourth century (A.D). The 'job' was so profitable that in the time of Christ there were about three hundred Bakers around Rome.
Europe
From the Roman Empire, the art of Bakery spread throughout Europe and the rest of the world.
During the Middle ages, it was common for each landlord to have a bakery, which was actually more of a public oven. Housewives would bring dough that they had prepared to the baker, who would use the oven to bake it into bread. As time went on, bakers began to bake their own goods, creating numerous tricks. For example, some bakers had trap doors that would allow a small boy to pinch off a bit of the dough to later sell off as his own. This practice eventually led in England to a regulation known as the Assize of Bread and Ale, which provided harsh punishments for bakers who were caught cheating. In response, bakers commonly threw in an extra loaf of bread; this tradition lives on in the modern "baker's dozen".
Modern bakers
Today bakers work in varying environments both as employees and sometimes owning their own stores. Bakers can be found working in:
- Large factories. These produce bread and related products which are then transported to numerous selling points throughout a region. These normally include supermarkets, convenience stores, and the like. Bakers in these environments are largely there for quality control as machines take care of much of the labour intensive aspect of the job.
- Small Independent bakeries. These are largely family-run businesses. They may specialise in particular types of products, such as sourdough. Independent bakeries are much more likely to create products made from scratch on premises.
- Chain stores. Recent years have seen the rise of chain stores (supermarkets) selling the same range of products. Bakers in these stores often bake according to a pre-determined recipe book. This can lead to frustration as some bakers do not agree with techniques used by the franchising model. However, the recipes used tend to be well-founded, and popular with the paying public. Alternately, many chain store bakeries no longer make any products from scratch, having switched to a more productive partially baked or pre-made format. This is a format that is popular yet not universal amongst American chains. This method also leads to frustration, albeit on behalf of the customers, who have negative connotations of pre-frozen or pre-made goods. It can be true that something is fresh baked on premises, but not fresh made. This should not be too surprising a fact, as supermarket bakery "departments" must produce large quantities of products which are generally inexpensive and therefore generally not very profitable to begin with. Even in this streamlined method of baking, the cost of labor can reach in the area of 20-30% of the bakery's profit and can keep a decently sized staff occupied the entire day. While it might sound hard to imagine, multitudes of these supermarket bakeries function daily without their bakers so much as touching flour, eggs, yeast or even a mixer. Products such as cakes, frosting, dough and sweet goods hold up extremely well in a frozen environment and can last for months in a freezer to be thawed and prepared for fresh consumption.
See also
- Pastry chef
- Dough
- Knead
- Baker's percentage