FLATBREADS
“What time do you have to get up?” It’s one of the most common questions you are asked when people find out you’re a baker, and it’s generally the first one. Arriving at work with, or way before, the sunrise is as much a hallmark of bakery work as floury jeans, broad shoulders and white lung. But, as you have read, we have night bakers, afternoon bakers, daytime bakers. We have shifts for all types, and all types work those shifts.
But it is undeniable that the bakery must have employees who are ready, willing and able to have the bread shelves properly stocked when retail opens the doors. When we first opened A&J King, I could get away with coming in at 3 a.m. That was before wholesale, and before anyone had ever heard of us. These days, you’ll regularly see our morning bread bakers shaping baguettes and traying up cookies at 2:30 a.m. And Saturdays in the summer we come in at 1:30 a.m., and who knows what the future holds.
Before I was forced into being an AM baker, I was a self-diagnosed “night person” and never worked anything but a PM shift. What I quickly discovered was that getting up to an alarm just after midnight is really no more difficult than getting up to an alarm at 6 a.m., 10 a.m. or 2 p.m. Even if it’s one of those clocks that plays “whale songs” or “rain on a tin roof,” being taken out of a nice dream sucks at any time.
“The superlatives heaped on the act of baking often stray into hyperbole. Spiritual, empowering, meditative … While I appreciate the sentiment, nothing rends a veil like doing it at 3 a.m. for a living. And, while I have, on occasion, genuflected in front of the oven, the gesture has been more profane than pious. Despite this crustiness, the satisfaction gained from baking is undeniable. The yeast is the life; the dough is clay to be shaped. You (and even I) may mutter a prayer when the loaves enter the oven, and shout a hosanna when they emerge. And if you ever wanted to give frankincense and myrrh a run for their money, the smell of cooling loaves is hard to beat.”
JOHN THIBODEAU
AM Baker
But once you’re awake, and that first notion that there’s a walk-in full of bread to bake hits your brain, you couldn’t head back to sleep even if you wanted to. I’ve known bakers out of the industry for years who still wake up at midnight, paranoid they’ve overslept. Once the AM baker schedule gets its claws into you, it’s there for a long time. Unlike the PM baker, the AM baker has a hard-and-fast deadline. A couple of them, actually. Bread has to be out and cooled for the wholesale driver to bag, and wholesale drivers will, in the most profane of terms usually, let you know if they’ve been set behind because you hit the snooze button once. And, once the breads are taken care of, retail needs to pack the shelves, and they’re not going to be pleased if you lounged in bed for an extra 5 minutes because we
open
in 5 minutes.
If the PM baker experiences the daily pace of the line cook, the AM baker experiences the urgency.
If done properly, however, the shift runs like clockwork and the satisfied, unperturbed baker gets to watch wave after wave of his or her beautifully baked product leave the baking room and enter the arms of grateful customers. If there’s time, a brief hobnob with a couple of regulars while getting that first cup of coffee for the day (5 hours into his shift), perhaps a stolen Pain au Chocolat off the pastry display, and then it’s on to tomorrow’s mix. Gotta get that French in the bowl.
FRENCH BAGUETTES
THE CLASSIC
We call this our “French” dough because we make baguettes and epi out of it, which are synonymous with Parisian bakeries. The baguette is easily our biggest-selling bread item at the bakery. It takes a bit of trying to nail this one down, and it’s the bread that will expose the flaws in your style (and equipment) more than any other. Like anything worth doing right, it will try your patience and
“What time do you have to get up?” It’s one of the most common questions you are asked when people find out you’re a baker, and it’s generally the first one. Arriving at work with, or way before, the sunrise is as much a hallmark of bakery work as floury jeans, broad shoulders and white lung. But, as you have read, we have night bakers, afternoon bakers, daytime bakers. We have shifts for all types, and all types work those shifts.
But it is undeniable that the bakery must have employees who are ready, willing and able to have the bread shelves properly stocked when retail opens the doors. When we first opened A&J King, I could get away with coming in at 3 a.m. That was before wholesale, and before anyone had ever heard of us. These days, you’ll regularly see our morning bread bakers shaping baguettes and traying up cookies at 2:30 a.m. And Saturdays in the summer we come in at 1:30 a.m., and who knows what the future holds.
Before I was forced into being an AM baker, I was a self-diagnosed “night person” and never worked anything but a PM shift. What I quickly discovered was that getting up to an alarm just after midnight is really no more difficult than getting up to an alarm at 6 a.m., 10 a.m. or 2 p.m. Even if it’s one of those clocks that plays “whale songs” or “rain on a tin roof,” being taken out of a nice dream sucks at any time.
“The superlatives heaped on the act of baking often stray into hyperbole. Spiritual, empowering, meditative … While I appreciate the sentiment, nothing rends a veil like doing it at 3 a.m. for a living. And, while I have, on occasion, genuflected in front of the oven, the gesture has been more profane than pious. Despite this crustiness, the satisfaction gained from baking is undeniable. The yeast is the life; the dough is clay to be shaped. You (and even I) may mutter a prayer when the loaves enter the oven, and shout a hosanna when they emerge. And if you ever wanted to give frankincense and myrrh a run for their money, the smell of cooling loaves is hard to beat.”
JOHN THIBODEAU
AM Baker
But once you’re awake, and that first notion that there’s a walk-in full of bread to bake hits your brain, you couldn’t head back to sleep even if you wanted to. I’ve known bakers out of the industry for years who still wake up at midnight, paranoid they’ve overslept. Once the AM baker schedule gets its claws into you, it’s there for a long time. Unlike the PM baker, the AM baker has a hard-and-fast deadline. A couple of them, actually. Bread has to be out and cooled for the wholesale driver to bag, and wholesale drivers will, in the most profane of terms usually, let you know if they’ve been set behind because you hit the snooze button once. And, once the breads are taken care of, retail needs to pack the shelves, and they’re not going to be pleased if you lounged in bed for an extra 5 minutes because we
open
in 5 minutes.
If the PM baker experiences the daily pace of the line cook, the AM baker experiences the urgency.
If done properly, however, the shift runs like clockwork and the satisfied, unperturbed baker gets to watch wave after wave of his or her beautifully baked product leave the baking room and enter the arms of grateful customers. If there’s time, a brief hobnob with a couple of regulars while getting that first cup of coffee for the day (5 hours into his shift), perhaps a stolen Pain au Chocolat off the pastry display, and then it’s on to tomorrow’s mix. Gotta get that French in the bowl.
FRENCH BAGUETTES
THE CLASSIC
We call this our “French” dough because we make baguettes and epi out of it, which are synonymous with Parisian bakeries. The baguette is easily our biggest-selling bread item at the bakery. It takes a bit of trying to nail this one down, and it’s the bread that will expose the flaws in your style (and equipment) more than any other. Like anything worth doing right, it will try your patience and
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