Wisdom Diary of a Pastry Chef

HospiBuz:- You have been a Pastry Chef at luxurious hotels. Please tell us how is the bakery items coordinated for the morning breakfast? Are they prepared a night before or in the morning itself?

Chef Hemant Parab:- For breakfast preparation, there is always a night shift to the bakery section for most of the luxurious hotels, the preparation is always done in night shift and it displays on morning breakfast for guest.

HospiBuz:- You are a Technical Consultant Chef at Euro Foods Pvt Ltd. Please tell us about your daily life there?

Chef Hemant Parab:- Actually the Euro Foods is basically a Pan India importer of Valrhona chocolate, irex bread premixes, Boiron frozen fruit and purees, we distribute that all over India from our Delhi and Mumbai branch, also we import t55 and t45 flour from turkey which is essential for bakery preparations.

Also, we are the importer of chef choice fruit fillings like blueberry, lemon, passionfruit etc. from Belgium which has 70% fruit content. In the market, you will find normally 50 to 55 % fruit content in a packet.

Also, we import dry fruits like macadamia, hazelnut, pine nuts etc and pumpkin seeds, multigrain seeds etc. So my job is basically giving the presentation of our products to our clients and also a demonstration of irex bread premixes which contain different kinds of bread premixes, improvers, gluten-free premixes, cake premixes etc.

The hospitality groups like Taj, Oberoi, Hyatt, Theobroma etc are our prestigious clients

HospiBuz:- Gluten-free cakes are not only a trend but a necessity. What is your take on it?

Chef Hemant Parab:- A few years ago it was just taken as a trend, but nowadays in all over the world, people have started focusing on products quality regarding health, so chefs have also started focusing on new dishes or to enhance basic preparations health-wise. By invention they trying to serve most healthy dishes to there customer, category of gluten-free products is also the big part of that

In our irex brand which is basically from Germany and a big prestigious player in pastry premixes in the current market, we provide gluten-free bread premixes to our customers like

© Singlupan (white bread)

© Singlupluse(brown bread)

© Singluplus vital( brown bread with seeds)

© Gluten-free brownie

So I also have started my role by promoting this product in the Indian market to provide healthy food to our customers

HospiBuz:- Chef, please tell us about the training you get in hotels? 

Chef Hemant Parab:- Most of the trainings like 

1. Personal hygiene,

 2. Culinary preparations, 

3. Haccp, 

4. Kitchen safety, 

5. Fire fighting, 

6. Food handling and hygiene 

7. Stcw course for joining the cruise line 

8. Communication skills 

etc. This kind of training I got in my career in hospitality

HospiBuz:- Give us some insights on the kitchen structure of the brand hotels. Are the bakery items cooked in the same kitchen or do they have a separate section for it? 

Chef Hemant Parab:- In brand hotels not only the bakery, but all kitchens like hot, cold, butchery, pastry kitchens have their own specific preparation areas. They are separate from each other which is very much essential for avoiding cross-contamination

Also, you will find this all areas under the supervision of executive chef, senior chefs of respective kitchen and quality control officer which helpfull to supervise day to day smooth functioning of kitchen and maintain the hygiene of food preparation

HospiBuz:- You have been a Pastry Chef at Princess Cruises. Please tell us about your work there? Was it easy to do baking at a cruise and how were the ingredients and raw material managed? 

Chef Hemant Parab:-

On princess cruise line I have worked in the pastry kitchen 

Pastry preparation like international and Indian desserts, gateaux 

Handling the proper work functioning of pre-plated desserts course line for cruise passenger restaurant sitting 

Preparation of fruit base tartlets, flans, sugar-free fruit base big flans 

Reporting day to day work follow up to my senior chef 

Maintaining the proper follow up of USPH process of the pastry Galley area to keep the area tidy and hygienic 

Basically, the ingredient and raw. material are managed by store department of a specific cruise ship. They always maintain some certain amount of stocks of all material regarding the time period of one cruise sailing between one port to another port. Once the ship reaches to the specific port destination, store department fill up the required quantity of food and other items for next cruise sailing, which helps to smooth work functioning on the ship and onboard weight balance of ship while sailing