Three Bad Batches, One Public Shout, and a Sunday Order
You run the pastry section of a 120-seat restaurant with a team of four. A commis three weeks into the job has made three batch errors this week: scones with double the baking powder, a crème anglaise scrambled at 88 °C, and 6 kg of macaronage folded until it ribboned. All three were caught at the last minute; nothing was written down. On Thursday the sous chef shouted at her on the section floor, and she has asked to speak to you after service. Meanwhile the general manager has accepted a 300-piece petit four order for Sunday, your most experienced cook is on annual leave until Monday, and overtime is capped at 4 hours per person per week. The section's written recipes are in bakers' percentages and there is no check step between scaling and mixing.
1. Set out, in order, how you handle the commis and the sous chef. What is the defensible, standards-based outcome for each?
Read the worked answer
These are two separate issues with two separate standards, and conflating them is the mistake to avoid.
1. The commis - conduct a coaching conversation, privately, first. Ask her to walk you through each of the three errors in her own words, without defensiveness. The pattern is diagnostic: scones at double baking powder, an anglaise at 88 °C, macaronage taken to ribbon - all three are the errors of someone converting bakers' percentages in her head with no verification and no technique reference. She has also been given 6 kg of macaron batter unsupervised at three weeks. That is a planning failure on your side as much as a skills gap on hers. Outcome: training and a check step, a temporary reduction in unsupervised high-risk tasks (not exclusion from the section), a written record framed as coaching rather than discipline, and a review date in two weeks with specific competencies to sign off.
2. The sous chef - conduct issue, addressed the same day, privately. Shouting at a junior on the floor is not a performance conversation, it is conduct. State the standard, the impact (she is now less likely to report the next error early, which is a food-safety risk, not just a morale one), the expectation, and the consequence if it repeats. Do not accept 'she keeps making mistakes' as a justification - the correct route is to raise it with you, not to publicly humiliate a new starter. Record it. If there is a second instance, it goes into the formal process.
3. Own your part in the room. No check step, recipes only in percentages, and a three-week commis on 6 kg of batter: say that out loud to both of them. That is what makes the conversation credible.
2. Build a plan for the 300-piece Sunday order within the overtime cap. State what you make, what you cut, and who does what.
Read the worked answer
The arithmetic first. Overtime available is 4 hours × the people on the section - you, the sous chef and one other cook while the experienced cook is on leave, so roughly 12 hours of additional capacity, not more. 300 pieces across four varieties is 75 each; across three it is 100 each. Fewer varieties, more of each, is faster per piece and less error-prone.
What to make (chosen for hold and for batch speed):
- Financiers, baked in frames and cut - one bake, hundreds of pieces, freezes well.
- Tartlets with pre-baked shells and a ganache or caramel set the day before - nothing piped to order.
- Pâte de fruits, made Thursday, cut and sugared Saturday - almost pure make-ahead.
- Truffles or a dipped chocolate item, done Friday, held cool.
What to cut: macarons. They are humidity-sensitive, they need ageing and matching, they are slow per piece, and the commis has just failed a macaronage. Also cut anything requiring same-day piping, cream, or a fresh fruit finish, and do not add a new item to prove anything.
Who does what:
- You: schedule, specs, final quality check and delivery.
- Sous chef: tartlets and chocolate work - high-skill, low-volume-of-errors.
- Commis: weighing and the financier bake, against a signed check sheet with a second signature before mixing. Not macaronage, not unsupervised custards - this is the same check-step she needs anyway, so it doubles as training.
Schedule: Thursday shells and pâte de fruits, Friday financiers and chocolate, Saturday finish and box, Sunday 06:00 pack and deliver.
If the numbers do not fit the 12 hours - and they may not - go back to the GM before Saturday with options: three varieties instead of four, a later delivery, or one approved agency shift. Accepting the order silently and failing on Sunday is the worst of the three outcomes.
3. What specific controls do you add to stop the batch errors recurring, and how would you verify in two weeks that they are working?
Read the worked answer
Three identical errors in one week is a system with no check step, not a careless individual.
Controls at the bench:
- Convert every recipe to gram-based scaling sheets with the batch yield and a stated check weight for the finished mix. Bakers' percentages stay as a reference line; nobody should be doing percentage arithmetic in their head at 06:00.
- Two-signature rule: scaled-by and checked-by on every batch before mixing. One signature is a formality, two is a habit.
- Critical-control-point card for egg and starch preparations: anglaise cooked to 82–85 °C and immediately strained into an ice bath; custard cooled to the two-stage standard. The 88 °C scramble says the number was never written down where she could see it.
- Fixed portioning tools - scoops, rings, weighed dough balls - so portion errors are physically hard to make.
- Daily pre-service brief, five minutes, with one technique focus and one thing that went wrong yesterday and why.
Training and supervision: 6. Station training matrix with signed competencies, so a three-week commis is never on an unsupervised high-risk task until signed off. Reconsider who assigned 6 kg of macaronage. 7. Error reporting without blame - the commis reported all three, which is the behaviour you want. Reward it explicitly so the next error is reported at the time rather than found later.
Verification in two weeks - measurable, not impressionistic:
- Zero uncaught batch errors (caught at the check step counts as the system working).
- 100% check-signature completion, audited daily.
- Spot-audit three batches reweighed, within 2% of the sheet.
- Commis signed off on two stations.
- A 15-minute review with her and the sous chef, on the record, with the next review date set. If the signatures or the audits are not holding, the controls were written but not adopted, and that is a supervision problem, not a commis problem.