Duchess Bake Shop. - Duchess Bake Shop: French-inspired recipes from our bakery to your home

EARLY ON A SATURDAY MORNING, long before the sun rises, the neighbourhood around Duchess Bake Shop is quiet and calm. Inside the kitchen, however, the scene is very different, with bakers hard at work on a myriad of tasks: kneading dough, chopping chocolate, filling clairs, shaping tarts. Every day starts early at the bakery, but on a Saturday morning, the busiest day of the week, the pace in the kitchen is in overdrive. Hands are flying and all eyes are on the clock as opening time nears.

There is a long list of tasks to accomplish in the few short hours before the doors open. Dozens of cakes are lined up on the maple-topped workstations waiting to be covered in chocolate or draped in marzipan. Brioches and croissants are proofed, macarons are filled, scones are mixedthe list seems endless. There is a long line of trays waiting for their turn in the hard-working ovens. As products are finished they are organized and arranged on rolling racks ready to be wheeled out to the front. The orders for the day have been written out on a large whiteboard and begin to be filled in order of pick-up time, and soon a small mountain of neatly labelled white boxes has grown.

At 9:00 am, the front staff begin to arrive to prepare the caf area. Silver trays are loaded up with piles of still-warm croissants, scones, galettes, brownies, and cookies and put out in the glass display cases. The front coolers are turned on and filled with the days assortment of tarts, cakes, and a veritable rainbow of macarons, the shops specialty. The espresso machine is warmed up and hundreds of cake boxes are readied for the day to come.

After a brief meeting to make announcements and go over changes in the product line, the doors are opened to let in the line-up of people who have been patiently waiting outside. The first hour will see over 300 people come through the doors. Shots of espresso are pulled as fast as the two baristas can manage while sandwiches, quiches, and salads are prepared to order in the back. The front staff wont have the chance to catch their breath until well into the afternoon.

After opening, the kitchen switches modes and begins to prepare for the next day. Hundreds of lemons and limes are juiced and zested, dry ingredients measured out in ranks of steel bowls, macaron shells piped and baked, deliveries of ingredients sorted and stored. At 1:00 pm additional bakers arrive. They will be there until well after the front has closed to ensure that the display cases will again be full the next morning. The last to leave are the cleaners, and then the kitchen goes dark for a few short hours until the bakers come back the next morning and the cycle begins again.

JACOB PELLETIER, GISELLE COURTEAU & GARNER BEGGS

THE IDEA FOR DUCHESS was born in the heart of Tokyo in the summer of 2007. Giselle and I had been living in Japan teaching English for two years and were trying to figure out what we would do when we eventually returned to Canada. I had long thought of having a small caf and Giselle had always wanted to open a bake shop and so, after some long discussions, we decided to try to make those dreams a reality.