Our Cooperative, like many co-ops worldwide, is guided by seven principles that have been around since the late 1800s. When thinking about interviewing our baking instructor, Pierre Ferland, I am reminded of Principle Five, which is Education, Training and Information: “Cooperatives provide education and training for Owners and staff alike, so that they can contribute effectively to the development of their cooperatives.”
This month we are so excited to share this interview with you. Pierre is a classically trained baking instructor with a wealth of knowledge and experience. We are lucky to have him at Willy Street Co-op. If you decide to take one of his classes you will not be disappointed, and you will take away some great techniques to dazzle your friends and family.
Q: How long have you been teaching?
Pierre Ferland (PF): I’ve been a baking instructor on a part-time basis for the past 24 years; my classes are held mostly in the evenings and weekends. Over the years I’ve held classes at Willy Street Co-op , Orange Tree Imports, Madison Sourdough, and The Market in Milwaukee. I’ve also had the opportunity to train and mentor pastry chefs and bakers just starting out in the industry as well as seasoned workers.
Q: What brought you to teaching?
PF: My first experience was at George Brown College in the mid-1990s (Toronto, Canada). I was asked if I could fill in for a semester to teach an advanced baking class for adults; this was a part-time class on Saturday mornings.
Q: What is your background in teaching?
PF: My background isn’t in teaching but more in training people in the baking/pastry industry. This training was conducted mainly on a one-to-one basis and on specific tasks and/or methods.
Q: What challenges do you face when teaching?
PF: One recurring challenge for the most part has been equipment malfunction. For example, ovens that are not calibrated (accurate temperature), food processors, and mixers—those are the most common challenges. Some facilities require that their formulas/recipes be used for a given class. Often these recipes are untested and simply do not yield the desired result.
Q: What’s your favorite aspect of teaching?
PF: I enjoy sharing professional techniques and methods with home-bakers. Most of the formulas/recipes found online, magazines, and non-professional reference books are not accurate and sometimes misleading in their execution and often end up in disappointment.
Q: You said you enjoy sharing professional techniques with home bakers—can you expand on that?
PF: As with everything today, there is a lot of misinformation regarding technique and method in baking. My role as a baking instructor is to explain and demonstrate those techniques and methods in a way that a home-baker can relate to. For example, articles featured in food magazines are overly cumbersome to read through and understand.
Q: What can participants expect to learn by taking one of your classes?
PF: Participants will learn to identify how and when to use proper methods, baking techniques, and how ingredients react to one another in a given formula, and how to use formulas/recipes as building blocks, as well as the concept of letting products mature (cake is a good example) before using them.
Equally important is making participants aware of alternative equipment available to the home-baker.
Q: During COVID a lot of home-bakers tried their hand in baking bread. Do you have any advice for baking bread at home? Do you have any hot tips?
PF: The best advice I have for home-bakers is not to rush through the bread-baking process.
Use a scale to weigh out ingredients. Check the date on fresh yeast. If using instant dry yeast, read the directions. Store instant dry yeast in the freezer. Do not under proof or over proof the dough. Always bake bread in a hot oven (380°F to 400°F).
Q: What are some challenges that a home-baker faces?
PF: Most home bakers don’t have a designated workspace at their disposal for that purpose; lack of space is usually the biggest challenge. Domestic ovens lack the precision needed as far as temperature settings and could be off by as much as 40 degrees. For pastries such as macaron, precise temperature is crucial.
Q: What kind of trends are you seeing in cooking these days?
PF: What seems to be a recurring trend is the rediscovery of products once popular and bringing them up to date as far as appearance, good examples are the Macaron, Eclairs, Paris Breast, Gateau Basque, and Mille Feuilles.
Q: Is there anything else you would like to tell us?
PF: I started my career in 1971 as a Boulanger/Pâtissier apprentice in Quebec, Canada. Over the years I worked in retail, wholesale, hospitality, supermarket industry, manufacturing (frozen product) product development, consulting, and baking instructor. I retired at the onset of COVID.
Q: What is a boulanger/pâtissier? I am not sure if our readers are familiar with those terms.
PF: The word boulanger translates to bread baker and has the same training/skills.
The word pâtissier loosely translates to pastry chef but has a much broader set of skills. The misconception is that “pastry chef” and “chef pâtissier” are one and the same. A chef pâtissier may be interpreted as an “executive pastry chef” here in the US and Canada. However, in the province of Quebec, the designation of chef pâtissier carries the same distinction as it does in France.
In other words, one must master every station to earn the designation of chef pâtissier.
Q: What would you say is the difference between baking and cooking?
PF: We can compare baking to classical music with its structure and precise interpretation. Whereas cooking is more akin to jazz with its free-flowing improvisation, it gives musicians the freedom to express themselves in the moment.
Q: Do you like to bake for yourself, and if so what is your favorite thing to bake?
PF: I seldom bake at home for myself, it’s more about testing formulas for specific projects.
Q: What hobbies do you have? What do you like to do in your spare time?
PF: Now that I’m retired, I have more time to pursue my hobbies. One of them is building models (model railroading) and the other is listening to music.
If you are interested in attending a class at either the Willy West or East location please check out the classes section of the Reader or head to willystreet.coop/events where you will find a full list of classes and events on our website. Each class does require registration, which you can easily do online. If you cannot sign up online, please feel free to stop by the Customer Service desk at any location and staff can assist you. If you are part of the Access Discount program, you can use your free class coupon to attend! At this time the Kids in the Kitchen classes and the Cooking Together classes continue to be online where you can join from the comfort of your own kitchen. Sign up for a class and build your kitchen repertoire with new and exciting skills!
