At the Village we had overlapping job duties with our A.M & P.M Pantry positions. Not only were both positions making salads and desserts, we had what seemed like every cook in the kitchen rotating thru these positions. You can imagine how consistent we were with the final products; all though the items were good…they were not EXCELLENT!
So with that said, we made some changes. We currently only have 3 associates working the two positions and the A.M position is now a true pantry position and produces only our cold food items for the house (salads, sandwiches, grab & go items, etc). The P.M position is now our Baker position, which is currently filled by our in-house Pastry Chefs (yes we have two). The Pastry Chef position is responsible for producing all desserts for the entire house, as well as our freshly baked bread every evening. The Pastry Chefs play a huge role in contributing to the menu writing process and we often challenge them with creating new things.
We are blessed to have two aspiring Pastry Chefs LaPorsha Chavers and Michelle Sandifer although new in their rolls; their desire and passion for baking and creating is off the charts. Their raw talent can measure up against anyone in the industry. The Executive Chef and our two Pastry Chefs are in the process of developing recipes for the entire cycle menu as well as our items sold in the Market Place. When complete we will be serving 100% made from scratch desserts (even sugar free items).
Pictured are our two Pastry Chefs Michelle Sandifer and LaPorsha Chavers, plated is a perfect example of the benefits of the position. Utilizing the scraps from dessert items and cake ends; we make different kinds of Bon-Bon’s, from chocolate cake to strawberry cheese cake, basically any and all of our dessert scraps. What we do is roll 1-2 oz balls, coat them with chocolate (white & dark), then we sprinkle different ingredients on them from nuts to coconut. We use them as filler for our dessert tables and we sell them like crazy in our market place.
