Jennie (Overnight Baker)
I started working at Bernice’s three and a half years ago. At the time, I was living right next door to the bakery, and the convenience of a fifteen second walk was an amazing perk to my job. I currently work on the overnight shift. I make most of the items that fill up the breakfast display case from scratch: muffins, scones, cinnamon and caramel rolls, cream cheese pockets, challah bread, turnovers. I also bake all of the croissants and danishes that have been prepared by the shifts before me.
When I arrive at work at 8 P.M., the bakery is closing for the evening. There are usually a few customers finishing up their coffee and treats out in the dining area. The music is pretty mellow, and it is pretty relaxed. Once those last few customers leave, the atmosphere changes. The counter staff is closing up, putting products away, and getting ready to leave for the night. The cleaner shows up and begins scrubbing the place down. The music changes to a livelier tempo and the volume increases. The loafies, who work the bread shift, are nearing the end of their day, and are usually in high spirits as they finish up baking off all of the breads in the hot and steamy oven room.
From 9 to 10, Bernice’s is a bit hectic with all the shifts trying to finish their last minute tasks so that they can go home. At 10 o’clock, the croissant maker shows up. This is when the bakery empties out to two people and becomes quiet. Then the dance music starts playing. The relaxed, mellow environment usually last until around 1:30 to 2 A.M., when foot traffic outside picks up a bit, due to closing time at the bars. People watching at this hour is usually pretty entertaining and amusing, especially after four hours of solitude in the bakery.
One of my favorite things about Bernice’s is that there is always something one on, day or night. There are employees bustling around the place 24 hours a day. The ovens are so use so much that they never get turned off. I love it when we get customer phone calls at all hours of the night, asking what time we open, if a cake can be ordered at 3 A.M., and if we can deliver doughnuts. I enjoy working here; the customers are awesome, and the staff is very entertaining. It always keeps me on my toes and never know what might happen next in this wonderful bakery!
Kyle (Bread Baker)
Bernice’s is the the sound of the back door as I walk in for the Loaf shift.
Pastries are wrapped and cookies hurriedly being pulled from the oven as I breathe in the melty chocolate chips and cooling cinnamon sugar. The tables are being wiped down, while frosting is scooped from the mixing bowls and ganache pulled from the double-boiler.
The pastry team clocks out and the Loafies clock in, time to make the bread!
Croissant doughs are pulled, rolling pins are readied and numbers are calculated. The baker on one side of the table rolling out pin-wheel danishes and cutting out the day’s croissants. The dough is soft and the butter will melt between our fingers if we’re not fast enough. Flour on the table, a little flour on the face. The mixer on the other side rolls the flour bins over and starts scaling the day’s batches. The sounds of pans, dishes and oldies music on the radio.
The starter bubbles as it is scooped into the big 60-quart mixing bowl and mixed with flour, salt and water for the sourdough’s. We pull out the stiffer starters and scale them for our Multi-grain and Rosemary Olive oil, saving a little to refresh and feed for the next day’s bread. The olive oil with fresh rosemary infusing overnight is unwrapped wafting a wonderful aroma around the back table and is added to dough and let to rest until it is ready to gently fold, then form in to loaves. Into the bin! Take the temperature and start the next batch!
The smell of yeast rises from the scale and the sound of eggs cracking as the baker turns up the deck ovens and says hello to the counter staff clocking in.
Molasses sticks to the inside of my measuring cup and honey clings just below my elbow. The sugar buckets are plentiful and are always stocked to overflowing. Walnuts are rolled and then toasted, the whole oven room warms and everyone walks through with a deep inhalation.
The doughs sit and ferment alongside cooled cake layers waiting to be wrapped. Five wedding cakes this weekend and we are getting low on buttercream, whip up a batch, let it sit. We’ll make it through.
We check the prep list and today we’ll need both blueberry and raspberry cream cheese filling made as well as spanikopita and a gallon of egg whites.
When all the croissants are rolled out and the mixer clears up the table we grab the whole-wheat dough and start the table work. Bench knives slice into the dough, scaling it into little rolls, loaf pre-shapes and batards. Our hands are blurs as we lightly roll the dough into balls and then stretch them out again to make loaves and hoagies. The bottom seams are pinched tight and we grab another pan to fill with hardrolls.
Cambros pop open and feta with artichoke hearts wafts over the make table, quickly the scoops! We chat about our morning as we work and contemplate an after work beer across the street at Flipper’s. The oven’s are turned up and we bust out some dishes before moving on to the next dough. Don’t want to rush it, the dough will tell us when it is ready. A light poke to the side of a loaf and it bounces back slightly.
The baker asks the mixer if he made egg wash? Yep, in the walk-in! Sesame seeds and poppy seeds are sprinkled over warm, rising buns and loaf straps are oiled for the loaves.
Customer’s come and sit in the window seats over a steaming mug of green tea with honey. A group of young women come in and bee-line to the cupcake case.
“Whaaaat’s thaaat one?”
Pointing to a red velvet cupcake with rose petal frosting on it. A young boy with his mom points to the peanut butter bar in the case and an elderly man walks out smiling at his chocolate croissant with a newspaper under his arm. A couple regulars mosy in and post up in their favorite chairs and ask each other how they’re doing today?
The dishwasher walks to the oven room with a stack of muffin tins and passes Zak the lunch guy with a whole tray of sandwiches. Mariah walks by with a whisk and a few spatula’s buried in a big bowl of raspberry icing. I can hear the laughter of Christine, the owner as she talks to an old friend stopping by for a mug of spiced chai.
Another rolling rack is brought in from the oven room to accommodate all the pans of rolls. Potato-Garlic Sourdough is resting on the back table waiting to be formed into rounds. Wooden boards are next to them, needing a cornmeal dusting. Flour rises over the table as we clap it into our palms to work with the stickier doughs. Sweat starts to form beneath my hat band and my hands move faster, lemonade on my mind. Before we start scaling the cinnamon-swirl loaves I ask Wally if he want’s a glass and we do a quick cheers together before mixing the cinnamon and brown sugar together and rolling it up into the sweet, yeasty white dough, my favorite bread on a Sunday morning.
More coffee is brewed and the customer’s go in and out, there is a couple deep in conversation on the back picnic tables, over looking the river trail. They quiet momentarily and look out across downtown towards Caras Park where the sounds of trumpets and trombones emits from the festival stage.
The afternoon staff starts to clock out and get on their bikes, Kate waves goodbye and put’s on her sweet shades. She asks when the hardrolls will be out of the oven? Maybe she’ll stop back in…
When the table work is done, then we take a break and eat some food, go outside and let our minds relax. We look out over downtown and prepare for the next part of the shift.
