The Holy Grail of French bakers


The Holy Grail of French bakers
While browsing through the recipes on this site, you may have noticed that while I adore cooking (everything, in fact, to do with eating and drinking), I am particularly drawn to bakery: bread, viennoiseries and all that goes with them – it’s a real passion of mine; I love making them and I enjoy eating them just as much.

For a long time I made do, finding recipes and information here and there, getting quite a long way by trial and error. But an idea was gradually taking root in my mind: I really needed to go and learn properly, and from real bakers.
17 K 4.7/5 (15 reviews)
Grade this page:
Keywords for this post:BakerBakeryTrainingInbp
Last modified on: March 24th 2018
For this post: Comment Follow Send to a friend
The Holy Grail of French bakers
The best plan seemed to be to take a CAP course (vocational qualification with certificate) in baking. This meant I would need to find not only the time necessary, but also the money (and this training doesn’t come cheap) and somewhere to do it.

I can tell you, it didn’t take long to decide on the “where”. As any French baker in the know will tell you, there’s one institute that really counts: the Institut National de la Boulangerie Pâtisserie (INBP) in Rouen – more or less the Holy Grail of professional bakers in France. If I had to come up with an analogy from a parallel universe, it would be the Harvard or MIT of bakers, no less.

From first having the idea to actually making this project happen took several years. To get on this famous course in Rouen I had to raid my piggy bank and clear five and a half months of sabbatical leave, temporarily leaving behind the world of IT in Brest and, along the way, dipping a toe back into student life (and as a rather “mature” student, you might have guessed).

Well, I managed it. Now here I am, training in Rouen since the beginning of January 2018, totally immersed in the world of baking!

I can sum it all up for you quite easily in two words: exciting and exhausting.

Exciting, because the training is extremely enriching, led by trainers with near encyclopaedic knowledge, who know all there is to know and can reply to every question. Their technical know-how and practical skills are simply amazing. These guys (yes, we haven’t have a woman tutor so far) are capable of explaining all the how and why to do with the importance, reasons, angle, size and number of cuts to make with a blade on the top of a loaf before it goes in the oven. Exciting, as I was saying – I’m learning so much from rubbing shoulders with them and I’m thrilled to bits about it.

Exhausting, too, because we have 4 baking sessions per week (minimum), each one lasting six and a half hours, starting at either six in the morning or one in the afternoon. Believe me, there’s no down time at all for the whole session: we calculate, weigh, knead, divide out, shape, prepare, decorate, cook and finish. We are all completely wiped out by the end of the session, happy to a greater or lesser degree with what we have produced (bread and viennoiseries), as you can imagine.

Baking is a school of “the perfect gesture”, and it’s very difficult to get this just right. There’s no secret: the only way is to do it again and again, over and over, in order to improve by small steps. Sometimes proud of what one has made when it comes out of the oven (rarely), sometimes disappointed (often), but always happy because, after all, it’s there to be eaten and it tastes good, even if it doesn’t look particularly beautiful, well-shaped or regular.

I’m about halfway through the course as I write these lines, and when I look at the photos of my first croissants, just over a month ago, and the ones I’m making now, I tell myself that there is still hope.

And why am I telling you all this, I hear you ask? Well, because it is affecting the website in two ways:

1) You may have noticed that the frequency of new recipes had gone down considerably. This is simply because I’m a long way from my own kitchen and this course is taking up close to 100% of my time, so I have very little left for publishing.

2) Also, I’m now aware that quite a lot of what I have written in the bakery articles and recipes is in need of a freshen-up, with better explanations, additions and, in some cases, corrections. But don’t worry; as soon as I have earned the title of Baker, and have the certificate to prove it, I’ll be on the case and get down to it seriously.

So, wish me luck, and the stamina to make it to the end… :-)

Lasts posts
Thinning out herbs
Thinning out herbs
If you need to add a long-stemmed herb (tarragon, mint, verbena, thyme, etc.) to a recipe, you'll probably only need the leaves and not the stem, so you'll need to remove the leaves. Leaf removal means keeping only the beautiful leaves, and eliminating the ugly stems and leaves, but how do you do...
August 8th 20256495
Add a bay leaf
Add a bay leaf
Bay leaf: small in size, but big in flavor. You'll find it in hundreds of recipes, and it's often added to cooking meat, in a sauce or broth, usually accompanied by other herbs or products. It's a staple of Provençal, Mediterranean and Oriental cuisine, but not the only one. Usually, in a...
July 31th 20251,1535
Parsley stems
Parsley stems
Parsley, whether curly or flat, is a delicious ingredient in many recipes, where it is used both raw and cooked. When used raw, in a salad for example, where it always provides, alone or with other herbs, a remarkable freshness, only the leaves are kept. And when used cooked?
July 28th 20251,181 13
A drizzle of olive oil
A drizzle of olive oil
Often in a recipe, you have to "baste" vegetables, for example, before sending them to the oven. What the author means by this is that you need to put oil on top of the vegetables to cook them in the oven. Typically, we just quickly drizzle oil over the vegetables, hoping not to miss any, but...
July 13th 20251,4055
Always secure your cutting board
Always secure your cutting board
When using a cutting board, it's very important that it's stable and doesn't move while you're cutting, for safety's sake. Boards have a natural tendency to slide on the work surface, but here are 2 ways to block them effectively.
July 1st 20251,4885

Other pages you may also like
Butter doesn't make you fat, unless you eat too much of it.
Butter doesn't make you fat, unless you eat too much of it.
Whenever I'm discussing cooking and recipes, there is one idea which comes up frequently, like this: "Oh no! But that's got butter in it" (I should add, for the sake of accuracy, that this is something I hear more frequently from women, who are almost all concerned with keeping their figure). ...
March 26th 201241 K4.5
Steam for baking bread
Steam for baking bread
What does steam have to do with bread-making? This is not only a bakers' secret, it is something you might not think of at all: if you make bread and bake it like a cake, you will end up with bread, but pale and with a thick, hard crust – a long way from the golden-brown crusty loaf you had in...
June 16th 2021141 K4.5
A few tips for effective kneading at home
A few tips for effective kneading at home
When you have to knead dough for bread or some other recipe, you may well use a food processor or the type of machine known as a stand mixer. The best-known brands are Kenwood and KitchenAid. They are useful tools, but here are a few tips to help you get the best out of them.
June 23th 2021277 K 23.7
The skin side of the fish first?
The skin side of the fish first?
When it comes to cooking fresh fish, if it's filleted with its skin on and you're planning to pan-fry it in a little olive oil, for example, you might ask yourself the following question: Which side, skin or flesh, should come into contact with the pan first?
February 13th 202123 K4.4
Wipe meats and fish before cooking
Wipe meats and fish before cooking
When you want to cook meat or fish, there's a very simple yet very important step to take before you even start: It's to dry, or wipe, each side of the meat or fish, sometimes called "dabbing" or "sponging". But why? And how? Let me explain.
April 14th 20246,4854.5
Post a comment or question
Posted by:
I am not a leaving thing
The 3 comments already posted on this page
  • Congratulations and good luck!
    Posted by hmijail may 17th 2020 at 06:31 n° 3
  • Thank you Daniela!
    Posted by jh april 3rd 2018 at 18:34 n° 2
  • Good luck Jean-Hugues at INBP.
    Posted by Daniela march 25th 2018 at 00:05 n° 1

Follow this page (as 2 people already do)
If you are interested in this page, you can "follow" it, by entering your email address here. You will then receive a notification immediately each time the page is modified or a new comment is added. Please note that you will need to confirm this following.
I am not a leaving thing
Note: We'll never share your e-mail address with anyone else.
Alternatively: you can subscribe to the mailing list of cooling-ez.com , you will receive a e-mail for each new recipe published on the site.

Back to top of page