May 17, 2013

I meet my Mentor today! Duni, of La Duni, is very busy and has a lot of important things to do. She is in charge of four famous restaurants and a large chartering business and that requires her full attention. I am very lucky to have received the opportunity to assist in the Baking Studio in uptown. She has personally trained all the employees working at this office, and everything runs smoothly and efficiently. I admire her enthusiasm and passion when she entered the building! 

After packaging my fair share of cookies, I asked Carolina if I could walk around in the kitchen, and she gave me a hair net, and told me to make sure I stay out of the way! 

This was the coolest part of the whole week. I felt like I was a part of kitchen. The tastes, and smells, and sounds all came together and produced the perfect hum of a bakery hard at work. I watched as they carefully poured steaming hot chocolate over a fresh cake, making the most beautiful outer layer I have ever seen. They popped out cake after perfect cake with ease, and decorated them to perfection. 

Something I have learned this week is the importance of appropriate tools. Angie, the cake and cookie decorator, and master of fondant, uses everything from whisks and spatulas, to rulers and masking tape, to make each cake exactly as planned. 

May 16, 2013

Today I arrived extra early to work because I knew Angie was not going to be there to assist me. When I arrived, a little before eight, there were already two racks of cookies awaiting my arrival. I spent all six hours packaging and sorting cookies. After I completely each task I made sure to check in with Carolina. The biggest challenge I am faced with at the La Duni Baking Studio is the lack of communication. Duni Borga, the owner, has not come in to the Irving office, and therefore I have been paired with her assistant Carolina. Carolina speaks very little English and has a hard time communicating what tasks I need to complete. Everyone working in the kitchen speaks only Spanish. Surprisingly, my Spanish is better then in thought it was. I am able to understand a lot, and can communicate with the chefs when I am faced with a problem, or need to find more packaging or ribbon.

Also, I spend a lot of time alone, and this is helping me reflect on the restaurant business as a whole. I am beginning to see how much organization, paperwork, and numbers it takes to produce a batch of cookies, and make sure they make it to the correct destination fresh and perfect. A successful bakery has a lot of behind the scenes work, and the actual cooking seems to be the lest of anyones concern. La Duni Baking Studio has a lot of hardworking people that all work together to make sure everything goes according to plan.

May 14, 2013

 I arrived at La Duni baking studio in uptown a little before nine o'clock. After a while of sitting outside, I was let in and introduced to Dunia Borga's assistant, Carolina. She gave me a brief tour of the small kitchen, then put me immediately to work. First, I packaged an assortment of Artisan Butter cookies, which smelled delicious. Then I packaged Mexican Wedding Cookies and Pistachio Cookies. The system was very precise and each type of cookie had a different ribbon color and package. After packaging over a hundred different cookies, I sorted them into the boxes that would deliver them to the restaurants around Dallas. La Duni has four restaurants, one in Fairview, one in McKinney, and two in Uptown. At the La Duni studio they had the packaging down to a science. I was careful to count correctly in order to get the correct amount of bags, stickers, and ribbons.

After about two hours of packaging, I was introduced to Angie. Angie is in charge of decorating special event cookies. I watched and learned as she beautifully crafted cookies and baked them to perfection. Then, after letting them cool in the cooling racks, she proceeded to decorate them with fondant and icing.  Angie rolled out the colorful fondant and shaped them into different shapes, patterns and sizes. She let me help make stems and little green leaves to decorate the apple shaped cookies. She decorated the cookies with white icing that spelled out "Thank You!" After that, I helped clean out the icing bags. We preceded to make Lion, Panda, and Frog cookies, each with a certain system to guarantee perfection. I learned how to use the machine that seals the packaging.

The Motto of La Duni is "Taste Love," and today I got to see the in and outs of how this wonderful company makes that possible.

May 15, 2013

I started out my day much like the day before. I arrived around eight fifteen and was immediately put to work. I was given a rack of unpackaged cookies. I put the Belgium Chocolate Chip cookies into individual bags, sealed them, then addressed them with the beautiful La Duni stickers and price tags. After packaging eighty three Belgium Chocolate Chip cookies, I transferred them to the shipping boxes, and Mark loaded them into the van and took them to the store at Northpark. Then I sorted the smaller Belgium Chocolate Chip cookies into six packs, sealed them, tied on the green bow and put them in the sorting room. Lastly I filled a special order of Cranberry Walnut Scones, and decorated the bag with the special La Duni seal.
Once I finished with my rack of unpackaged cookies, I was summoned to help sort cookie cutters. Duni has over three hundred different types of cookie cutters, all crammed into ten different drawers. Angie and I took out every cookie cutter, and put them back into their original packages. We made sure all sets were complete, and threw away any broken or morphed cookie cutters. There were cookie cutters for every occasion; Easter, Christmas, Baby and even Circus! We worked on organizing the cookie cutters for three hours, and when we were finished we had one more order to fill.



The kitchen produced thirty apple shaped sugar cookies that we were required to decorate, package, and send out. We began by rolling out the red fondant. It is very sticky and requires concentration and skill. Then we used the newly sorted apple cookie cutters to cut out the red fondant and lay it carefully on the fresh sugar cookie. Then we rolled out the brown fondant and created little brown steams that were carefully put on the cookie. Then we rolled out the green fondant and made leaves that I sculpted and laid on the cookie. Lastly, Angie used the new white icing to write "Thank You!" on each cookie. Then we let them dry, packaged them, and sent them off to their destination!