It was the third time I’d made those damn tarts in a week. They were a fairly simple idea from my boss.
“Matt, what do think of offering seasonal upgrades on our holiday banquet menu? Like they can order your Chocolate Passionfruit Tartlets, but for a little more they could spring for some other more seasonal flavor?”
“Not a bad idea… what did you have in mind?”
“Hmm… how about apple? Just apple with some whipped cream and pecans? We can tweak the idea later- just spitballing right now.”
“Sure, I guess that’d work. I’ll figure out batching and stuff and we can discuss it.”
The next time it’s discussed looks like this:
“Hey Matt, we’re going to need about 20 dozen Roasted Apple Tarts for next week.”
“Um… since when? I don’t have a recipe or batching for that yet. Wait- did we already sell this?!”
“Just make a good apple filling and put it in some shells. We’ll figure out the rest later.”
In my world, “figuring out the rest later” means “throw together a basic recipe and, if you don’t have perfect math for everything yet, do the recipe as many times as it takes and keep notes.” It practically wipes out the point of production baking- doing one big batch only a few times, storing it, and pulling as needed- because I have only guesswork to go on. “This should make about this many, and we should be able to freeze leftovers for later…”
That’s a lot of “shoulds” and “abouts,” and if they are wrong suddenly I am remaking the product under more pressure. More pressure means more hurry, and more hurry means more mistakes. Haste makes waste.
The pastry chef in me sees this for what it is- a waste of time and a waste of resources spent on what comes down to the impatience and lack of communication that, alas, comes from working under others. That part of me also eventually says, “Fine. You want basic, you get basic.”
The good news is that basic by no means means “bad” if you know what you’re doing.
The Black Hat Baker 