Tag: CAP

The results are in

Posted on by Bee Stewart

‘The results are in’ was first published on bee-bakes.com, July 8, 2015

The results are in.

After nine months of hard slog, very early mornings trudging through snow, numerous burns and injuries, too many tears, countless litres of crème pâtissière, exams, laughs, kitchen disasters and delicious crunchy croissants the results of my French state exams to be a certified pâtissière in France are in…and I passed all of them! All of them in French! That includes subjects also reserved for native students: maths and science, history and geography, French language, as well as the pâtisserie related exams business management, health and safety and, of course, the practical exam. All in French!

A huge THANK YOU to everyone who has helped me for the last year, you’ve no idea how much I appreciate it. Onwards and upwards!

Welcome back

Posted on by Bee Stewart

Greetings and welcome to the all new version of Bee Bakes now at The Bakehouse.

A few people have told me they found the original Bee Bakes blog to be a useful insight into training to be a pastry chef in France, so I decided to re-post the old stories here. I’ll also be updating with new adventures on the very long road to opening my own business in France.

For those who don’t know me I’m Bee, an Australian who moved to France in 2013 and re-trained to become a pâtissière. I studied at Ecole Nationale Supérieure de la Pâtisserie at the Château de Montbarnier in Yssingeaux. Since finishing there in 2015 I’ve:

  • completed an internship at a pastry shop in Lyon
  • passed a CAP Pâtissier (certificat d’aptitude professionnelle), which is a state certificate needed to open your own business, and also required me to pass a level of French high school because my Australian university degrees and high school certificate weren’t accepted by the trade training department!
  • bought a house in the countryside and started renovating it (I’m quite the plasterer now)
  • started my own micro-enterprise and completed the associated courses and mountains of paperwork that go with it, including a week-long course on how to run a business…in French, of course!
  • built a patisserie lab into the basement of our house and in the process learnt how to tile, plaster, put up plaster boards, plaster joins, sand properly, paint properly, re-grout tiles and scrub the floor properly…with a toothbrush…
  • started experimenting, refining recipes and selling cakes and biscuits

That’s just to name just a few things! I’m now am in the process of what I hope will be the LAST THING I HAVE TO DO in order to fully get this show on the road: pass my permis de conduire — French driving licence!

I hope you enjoy the blog.

Cheers

Bee