Pastry Chef Job Outlook

Pastry chef jobs are hardly half-baked. Read what your options are.

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Starting a Pastry Chef Job

In a pastry chef job, you'll be among the artists of the culinary world, baking and dressing each petit four or browning each creme brulee with the utmost care and attention to detail.

These days, carrying on this long-standing culinary tradition may mean loading dough into the oven at 3:00 a.m. for the day's first fresh bread, adding dollops of whipped cream to 100 slices of devil's food cake for an evening gala, or adding the final flourish of frosting to a wedding cake before it's wheeled out to the happy couple.

Wherever high quality pastries are served, pastry chefs can be found working behind the scenes.

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The majority of pastry chef jobs are concentrated in the food service and hospitality-related industries. According to a recent PayScale.com survey, the top employers for pastry chefs are as follows:

Restaurants

Bakeries

Hotels

Food service

Baking and Pastry

Catering

Hotel and Hospitality Management

The Life of a Pastry Chef

Pastry chef careers are often very physically demanding, requiring chefs to spend hours on their feet. The schedule can also be intense. Many chefs work 55 hours a week or more. Depending on the establishment and type of food being served, a pastry chef may keep extremely early, late or long hours due to the intensive nature of prep work most pastries and breads take.

Pastry Chef Salaries

What you'll earn in a pastry chef job depends on several factors. Your pastry chef school education and level of experience will come into play, as well as the type of establishment where you work, your geographic location, the number of hours you work, and your exact job title. Salary.com's 2012 survey extimates the following annual salaries may be earned: