The Second Baker Internship

The alarm goes off; it’s 00:05 (i.e., shortly after midnight). I have just enough time to eat some granola, drink some caffeine, and still get to the bakery before I am set to begin at 01:00.  Having arrived punctually, I knock on the front door loud enough for the guys in the basement to hear.  The baker comes up and unlocks the door.  Following a warm greeting, I am shown to where I can change into my baker’s gear: white plaid pants, a white shirt, and a white apron.  The pants provided are too short and too snug – luckily they are also stretchy.

My second bakery internship is a mere five minutes walk away from my apartment, which is more than convenient.  It is one of the last true bakeries in the city, where the other bakeries either bake purchased, frozen dough or are part of a mass-market chain.  It is also a bakery very well known by the locals.  When I share with others where I am currently interning, there is never a time where someone doesn’t respond that this bakery has the best [insert baked good]; sometimes they mention a bread or a cake or the Pfannenkuchen.  I now take a lot of pride in my time here, and am ever the more appreciative of them welcoming me into their world.

This bakery has been in the family for four generations and has existed in its location for over 100 years.  The actual bakery is in the basement with the shop on the main level.  Though they make perhaps a third of the quantity I experienced in my first baker internship, this shop easily sells-out each day; as mentioned before, their reputation in the city is fantastic.

In the past four weeks, my three-day work week (Monday, Friday, and Saturday) has been humbling.  The first day, I was diligently taking notes on my phone with various recipes.  The baker’s father, who still helps out though retired, offloaded reams of paper containing recipes he knew by heart.  I arrived back home with a box full of potential recipes and a lot of sales materials (with pictures of final products).

Each day is full of questions about best-practices and some real hands-on experience.  I fell right in with the handling of the Brötchen, but had “two left hands” when it came to forming bread loaves.  How they get the dough to form a smooth ball and not stick to their hands is a secret they don’t seem to want to share – I’ve asked!  Not only am I getting experience in the feel for bread, but I have been invited to make some of the deep-fried treats, the cakes, and even some of the desserts.

Similar to my first baking internship, this bakery does focus on bread and rolls; however, they do make fresh cakes each morning.  I have become an expert at distributing the crumbles all over the top of cakes, and also at shaking out confectioner’s sugar once they are out of the oven.  But mostly I sweep during the downtime and pepper the bakers with unceasing questions.

The Bakers’ Lineage

These basement bakeries are quite rare as the ovens either fall of out use or are torn out and upgraded.  This family business has gone through its transitions, however.  During some of the short breaks, I gratefully listen to the stories of how the current baker’s grandfather transitioned the ovens from wood and coal to gas.  I cannot imagine the work required to get a fire going and then shoveling out the ash (from the basement) and cleaning out the oven each day.  The baker’s father was then responsible for the idea of using trays for the bread rolls.  Prior to that, each roll was placed in the oven and fished out with a large wooden paddle – similar to how loaves of bread are handled today.  I am curious to see what the mark the latest generation will make.

Unlike my first internship, this bakery works with one oven; my previous bakery had a more modern, four-tier oven system.  There, large rollers were used to place risen dough into the oven; paddles were used to remove.  In this experience, everything is placed by hand (i.e., by paddle) and removed the same way.  The previous experience had controlled temperature and humidity.  In this bakery, heat is gas-produced, but vents are manipulated in four locations within the oven; humidity is added manually.  I have begun to mimic this in my personal oven when baking (excluding the surprised looks).

Receiving Homework

On Day 6 of my internship, the end of my second week, I was offered a bowl.  The bowl was filled with all the ingredients in their proper proportions that one would need to make a loaf of the ubiquitous Mischbrot (70 percent rye flour, 30 percent white flour; 7 percent weight of yeast and 3 percent weight of salt).  I was told to go home and make a loaf of bread, report on the success, and bring the bowl back.

I was up for the challenge and excited to put all of my new-found knowledge to the test.  All I needed was to add water… but how much?  I was given some guidelines, but flour has its own personality and sometimes more or less water is needed.  And though I recalled the feel of a well-made dough, how do I get there?  I added the water, I worked the dough, and I baked the results.

Epic fail!  The loaf tasted like flour.  I did not use enough water and I definitely did not work the dough enough.  I brought a slice of my homework in with the bowl and suffered through the laughter and the disappointment.  It is important (to my ego) that I point out I have since made two more loaves of Mischbrot and each is leaps and bounds better than the former.  That said, my output is still not to the standards demanded by this bakery.

Next Steps

As I am traveling back to the US for Thanksgiving, this internship unfortunately comes to an end in one week.  As this has been my favorite interning experience so far, I am planning on planting the seed of a continuation in January.  I may not be able to convince them to accept the inefficiencies I bring, but there’s no harm in asking.