Article

Pastry Chef: A new age career opportunity in India

In becoming a part of food industry, one requires knowing whys and how's of everything. One requires having an interest in preparing delicious desserts that not only taste good also, look tempting. Pastry chef needs to inculcate an art of making and beautifying the desserts. It is interesting, creative, intricate and challenging to be a pastry chef. Having an artistic presence in your preparations creates temptation in the eyes of the beholder, as people want something that is feast for their tongue as well as their eyes.

The process of becoming a pastry chef involves specific knowledge, specialized skills and a few personal characteristics. What distinguishes a professional pastry chef from an amateur is the organization and detail-orientation. As we see that desserts are usually multi-layered so, it requires proper assembling of several components together to have a decent final product. Each ingredient requires being measured properly and added in a perfect way to get the best results. Hard work and patience are the virtues of a good chef. It requires a lot of stamina to stand continuously for long hours to get the desired output.

Having an eye for creativity is particularly important in making pastry more than any other type of culinary. Patience is a key to yummy pastries and an asset for pastry chefs. Desserts always require extensive preparation. A good pastry chef always has a keen understanding towards the scientific procedures behind their preparations.  As a chef, a person has to handle fragile and perishable items which will need complete know how of food safety. There are always chemical properties for every ingredient and they way they are put together. Nutrition science knowledge is vital to take extreme caution while handling food items as it is about the consumers' health.

A large no. of Pastry chefs are actually going to Europe and US and coming back to India working in hotels, opening their own pastry shops or doing on line business. Pastry being such a niche specialized area, you actually need a perfect place for set up, good quality equipment and more then all a highly trained pastry faculty. Once you enter the pastry world you will be surprised to know the opportunities or area of exposure.

Bread, Chocolate, Pastries, designer cakes, Ice cream, travel cakes & Vinnoeserie are just very few topics of the wider range.

Visually appealing food items and healthy items at the same time are the basics of preparing any dessert.  To be skillful is also a major field to master dessert preparation. Measuring ingredients as how to mix, how much to mix and what to put is an important knowledge to be had by chefs. Plus people skills, management skills and business skills, everything is necessary to be learnt by a pastry chef.

Whatever level of education you choose, it is necessary to choose a right program that offers a lot of guidance and expert advice from time to time. Vital things to compare while choosing culinary programs are mainly the faculty, facilities and accreditation.

Faculty - Culinary faculty should consist of experienced chefs who are experienced and can well mentor the people who have just stepped in this field.

Accreditation - Always go for a culinary federation that is recognized and has a name that can help you move forward while applying your skills in the market.

Facilities - A good culinary facility always involves working in a professional kitchen and on job trainings using standard industry equipments.


It is important while working on making a career to imbibe all sorts of practical experiences, part-time job training, finances, customer relations and student placement services.

Pastry chefs are not only limited to making cakes and baking. There are swarms of options for anyone. One can work for a bakery, patisserie or even a restaurant. One can even finance in own start-up as a baker or even can teach further. There are lots of career options to pursue.

Pastry chefs are always in demand and they get paid well.  The more education and experience you have, the more money you will make.  Pastry chef is a wonderful career to pursue for anyone who is artistic and creative, practical and logical.  It’s a career with rich opportunities—making delicious, wonderful and tempting desserts.

Mr Niklesh Sharma is the Managing Director of Academy of Pastry Arts

Academy of Pastry Arts India is an International pastry school where Professional Pastry Chefs offers a world class pastry Instructions to the aspirations of young Pastry chef.

Chef Niklesh always believe in sharing the knowledge and growing pastry chefs. He always feel that students should be provided training at the start of their career and should not wait for working in the hotels to get that exposure. “Students should be getting all form of training and exposure while they are in pastry school so that they can actually enter the Industry with more confidence“ says chef Niklesh.

He developed and nurtured a team of pastry chefs in Malaysia who are the National Champions, Asia Pastry Champions and also are ranked as 4th in the “World Pastry Cup in France“. His team of Pastry chef are considered as one of the Best Pastry chef team in any school. The pastry team who always like to challenge themselves with exciting project like Chocolate Fashion Show, High End Pastry Banquet and recently being part of “World Gourmet Summit 2015“ in Singapore.