Benjamins Gourmet Foods

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Benjamins Gourmet Foods
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• Benjamins Gourmet Foods is a small
  catering business located in Selkirk. Run by Mary
  Jane Feeke, its main functions are catering to
  both small and large functions, wedding cakes,
  tortes, birthday cakes and Pastries. During the
  warmer months, wood fired pizza is baked in the
  outdoor wood fired oven which is located outside
  the shop. There is a covered seating area for the
  customers to sit. Although it is run by
  Mary-Jane, it is a very family oriented business
  with Mary- Janes mother, father and husband
  helping out. Inside the shop we have a gas oven
  and a convection oven. In the back of the shop is
  where the baking area is located which consists
  of a bakers table, a medium sized mixer and a
  kitchen aid.

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Responsibilities

• Baking bread and buns for catering functions
• Mixing pizza dough for Thursday and Friday
  evenings.
• Baking all cakes, filling and masking them
  including finishing work on tortes.
• Filling pastry orders
• Keeping inventory of my stock and letting them
  know when I am running low on something.
• Deciding on and making all desserts for Thursday
  and Friday evenings.
• Keeping my work area sanitary.
• Making mousse cakes, Italian butter cream, pastry
  cream, lemon curd and Cooley's.

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Critical Events

• From May through to the middle of
  October, the outdoor oven is used to serve the
  public wood fired pizzas. The covered seating
  area includes a bar and is often used to cater to
  bridal showers, birthdays etc .

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Professional and Personal Gains

• Major improvement in masking and layering tortes.
• Looking at a product that may not be to my liking
  and finding ways to improve it.
• Mastered pouring ganache.
• Learned the difference between making a pizza
  dough and a bread dough.
• More experience working with sugar paste
• Experience with mixing and rolling, and pouring
  fondant.
• Experience in rolling pizza dough and puff dough.
• Improved my piping skills drastically.
• .Improved my overall confidence.

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Points of Interest

• While working at Benjamins, I was given the
  freedom to experiment and use my own ideas along
  with being able to practice certain products
  which I felt necessary. Any questions I had about
  a product or procedure, were always answered or
  demonstrated in a clear way in which I could
  understand and learn. I couldnt have asked for a
  better work term. Mary Jane is a wonderful
  person to work for and an extremely great
  teacher.
• Below is a picture of MJ with one of her creations

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Conclusion

• I would highly recommend Benjamins Gourmet to
  future students. Everyone there was extremely
  kind and patient as I learned new techniques. I
  had a wonderful work term and it was a great
  experience.