Bakery Organisation, Tools, Equipment, Safety and Hygiene
Domain 1 examines how a professional bakery is organised, what each tool and machine does, and how safety and hygiene are controlled on the floor. Questions ask you to name sections and equipment by function and to apply a hygiene rule to a given situation, so answers must be specific rather than general remarks about cleanliness.
Organisation and sections
- Brigade: head baker/pastry chef → sous chef → chef de partie → commis → apprentice; apprentices do scaling, mise en place and cleaning.
- Sections: boulangerie (bread), viennoiserie (croissant, Danish), patisserie (cakes, pastry), confiserie (sugar, chocolate), glacier (ice cream).
- Work flows forward only: store → preparation → production → cooling → packing → dispatch.
Tools and equipment
- Digital scales: 0.1 g for yeast and spice, 1 g for bulk. Volume scoops cause error.
- Planetary mixer: paddle for creaming, whisk for foam, hook for dough; dough sheeter for lamination.
- Deck oven for bread and puff, convection for cookies; proving cabinet at 27–30 °C and 75–85 % RH.
- Bench scraper, palette knife, banneton, piping nozzles, sugar thermometer, marble slab.
Safety and hygiene
- Burns: dry cloths only, handles turned inward, no water near hot fat.
- Machines: guards fitted, unplugged before cleaning, no loose sleeves or jewellery near the sheeter.
- HACCP controls: FIFO/FEFO, date labels, two-stage cooling of custards, raw and ready-to-eat work separated, goods stored 15 cm off the floor.
- Measure sanitiser dilution; wiping cloths and drains are the main contamination reservoirs.
Worked example
You need 5 litres of quaternary ammonium sanitiser at 1:100 for clean-down. “1 in 100” means one part concentrate in 100 parts total, so concentrate = 5000 ml ÷ 100 = 50 ml, made up with 4950 ml water. Reading the ratio as “1 part to 100 parts water” gives 49.5 ml in 5000 ml - a weaker solution and a failed check. Measure with a jug, never a bottle cap.
Traps that cost marks
- Swapping boulangerie and patisserie, or naming a tool without its use.
- Claiming a freezer “kills bacteria”; it only stops growth.
- Ignoring wiping cloths and drains as contamination sources.
- Storing cleaning chemicals beside open ingredients.