00:00Everything here is baked fresh in-house.
00:06What it feels like to be in charge of the kitchen
00:09is to never truly be in charge.
00:12You have a boss, you have other people, you also have guests.
00:15It's like, I like this dessert more, but they like this one,
00:18so I guess I'll keep making that one.
00:25That's what it's like being the boss in the kitchen.
00:29My name is Daphne DeLon, and I'm a pastry chef in Los Angeles for a living.
00:35I arrive at 8 a.m., and I basically just come in,
00:41take stock of what we have, what we don't have,
00:43figure out my production for the day.
00:45Working in this industry, we always work weekends,
00:48so my weekends are for myself Monday and Tuesday,
00:51so that's when I would get my rest and go out, I guess.
00:55So this is pretty much my pastry quarters.
00:57This is our own little corner.
00:59We have our ovens, our proofer, our speed wrap,
01:02where we store everything that's going to be baked
01:03or have been baked and is cooling.
01:06This is my production list.
01:07It kind of guides me along with what we're doing for the day.
01:10Here's the little boy.
01:11We have all of our desserts ready to be plated.
01:15These are my recipe books, and today we're making the whoopie pie,
01:19so I'm just going to find that recipe.
01:21I was going to school for psychology,
01:23and a college best friend of mine just like,
01:27well, why don't you just go to culinary school?
01:29You like cooking.
01:30I'm like, I do? I guess I do.
01:32And so that was something that encouraged me to look into that.
01:35Just like, I'll see what happens, and then the rest is history.
01:38My family is Southern, so we do a lot of cooking just in general.
01:42I did do a lot of baking growing up.
01:44My mom bought me an Easy Bake Oven, so that was my intro to baking.
01:47And I do have a great aunt that I would spend a lot of time in the kitchen with
01:51just because she spent a lot of her time cooking and teaching us things just by proxy.
01:55She's pretty much the matriarch of our family,
01:58and so just naturally being around her, you gain an interest.
02:01A lot of times being in this industry, I don't see a lot of people that look like me.
02:05A lot of times I'm the only black person, let alone black woman in this space.
02:09Some challenges that I face are just having to be assertive,
02:13and like having to tiptoe around being assertive
02:15because people are always going to perceive you as having an attitude or being too sassy.
02:19It's just like, no, I don't have an attitude.
02:21I'm just a boss, and this is the way that things need to go,
02:24or this is the way that you need to listen to me.
02:26In this industry, being a woman is also hard because there are a lot of men.
02:30It's basically ran by men. There are a lot of men around you.
02:32In my history of being in this industry,
02:35I've worked in both bakeries and kitchens. I've gone back and forth.
02:38In bakeries, there are a lot of women,
02:40and so it's definitely more, like, balanced in that way,
02:44but in kitchens, there's definitely more of, like, men and men energy.
02:50Welcome back, Martha.
02:52So every day, me and Martha come in in the mornings and get everything started.
02:56She'll get started on the bread, and I'll get started on pastry production.
02:59We'll help each other out when we need it.
03:02Also, we'll decide what music we're going to play for the day.
03:05She likes rock.
03:06No.
03:07And Johnny Cash.
03:08I like Beyonce.
03:09I feel weird saying, like, I love Beyonce.
03:13Here at Connie and Tess, I've been working for about two years.
03:15To get the job, I actually had to do a tasting with the owners,
03:19Chef Michael and Donato.
03:21In the tasting, I had to make a few different desserts
03:23to kind of showcase my talents and my ability to work in a kitchen,
03:26and the kitchen was brand new to me, so that was a bit of a challenge.
03:29I made a orange cheesecake with a kumquat topping.
03:33I made my butterscotch ice cream, which is still on the menu, so I adore that.
03:37A typical path and career for baking and pastry,
03:40and just in kitchens in general, will probably be, like, entry level,
03:42which you come in and you do production,
03:45probably earn about minimum wage, whatever that may be, in respective areas.
03:48And then you just kind of, like, keep your head down, work hard,
03:52learn things, take direction well, and work well with others,
03:56and then you work yourself into a salary position.
03:58Starting out of this industry, I think you can expect to make
04:01somewhere around minimum wage.
04:04I've been in this field for over 10 years, so I am now at a salary position.
04:09Here at Connie and Ted's, I make about $80,000.
04:12In kitchen, you can do this job with or without culinary school.
04:15Of course, with some proper training, you do put yourself at a certain level
04:19to be taken a little bit more seriously.
04:21But honestly, you can interim to production, and if you work hard enough,
04:25you can definitely progress up to a higher position.
04:28I personally went to culinary school because I was just honing in on my own interests
04:33and seeing what I wanted to do.
04:35Everything doesn't happen overnight.
04:37You actually have to be patient, work on your craft, work on it at home.
04:41A lot of my knowledge is self-taught and practiced.
04:44I am also proud of my trajectory in that I get to, like, run my own program here
04:49at Connie and Ted's.
04:50I decide what goes on the menu.
04:52So now I'm going to show you how I make our sweet potato hulby pie.
04:57All right, we are doing 255 grams of butter.
05:02You have to be very precise in baking or else your stuff will come out pretty messed up.
05:07For granulated sugar, I need 225 grams of sugar.
05:13It's nice to have two different types of sugar.
05:15It just puts a little bit more depth into the recipe.
05:19All right, now we're going to just cream our butter and sugar until it's nice and fluffy.
05:26Now I'm going to crack my eggs.
05:29Three teaspoons of vanilla.
05:32Vanilla is very expensive, so a gallon costs, like, 300 bucks.
05:37When my butter and sugar is ready, I'm going to add in the eggs.
05:41Wait till they get nice and emulsify it in.
05:45All right, at this point, we're going to add in our pureed sweet potatoes.
05:49We do get these in fresh, so we just bake them off really nice
05:52and then puree them in a food processor.
05:55400 grams.
05:57Three quarters of heavy cream.
06:00We have all of our spices here.
06:02Some cinnamon, some ginger, some nutmeg, salt,
06:06then a little leavening, bacon powder, baking soda.
06:08And then once it's mostly starting to come together, you'll add in milwets.
06:13The pan's been a little messy. It's all right.
06:16The batter is all done.
06:18Now we scoop.
06:20This is a portion scooper.
06:22We use it for ice cream.
06:23We use it for cookies.
06:24We use it for whoopie pies.
06:26Of course, these will expand in the oven,
06:28so you're going to make sure you don't put them too close together.
06:30But mostly, they should just be going a little bit wide and up.
06:36And I'll set my timer.
06:38Six minutes.
06:40I would make this sweet potato spice cake a lot for my family
06:43and for family events.
06:45And, like, for my aunt, she likes it a lot, too.
06:47So, basically, I took that recipe and evolved it into, like,
06:50a whoopie pie recipe for the restaurant.
06:54A lot of times, if this is, like, only a few more seconds,
06:57I'll wait right here.
06:59Beautiful whoopie pies.
07:00Kind of look like cookies, but they're just a lot more soft.
07:02So, for our whoopie pies, we have our cream cheese, buttercream here, which is our filling.
07:09Now that they've cooled down to room temperature, we can add our buttercream.
07:13So, basically, for service, how we would do, check a little Connie and Ted's paper, wrap it around.
07:21And then I want a plate just like that.
07:23And here's our spicy potato whoopie pie recipe.
07:27I feel especially proud of myself when I think about how far I've come.
07:32Because actually being able to support myself full-time with my job
07:35and actually doing something for a living that I love and I have a passion for.
07:39Oftentimes, when I come out, they ask for the pastry chef.
07:41They're like, oh, that dessert was so good.
07:42Can I speak to the shepherd?
07:43Can they come out?
07:44And I come out, they're like, oh, wow.
07:45Especially if it's, like, someone who does look like me.
07:47If it's a black person, they're very proud.
07:49And they're just, like, so surprised and so proud of me.
07:52I almost feel like I just made, like, a new family member in that moment.
07:54And I do know that representation matters.
07:56So, I'm very happy to be representation for all of my little black girls growing up.
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