Simplifying Bread Production

I went back home with the four of us, set our things down, and headed for Marie-san’s bakery.

“Good morning, Master, everyone.”

When the four of us walked in, Emily greeted us. It looked like the cleaning had already finished; there wasn’t a single piece of trash on the floor.

“Morning, Emily. Thanks—let’s do our best today.”

I said that to Emily.

Today, I planned to explain how to use the equipment in the shop to Caro-san, Marie-san, and Catherine. I left the storefront to Emily, since she already knew how everything worked, and I planned to handle the renovation on the bakery-workshop side.

“Alright, I’ll be working on the bakery workshop. Emily, could you teach the three of them how to use the register?”

“Understood, Master. Everyone, please come this way.”

After I asked, Emily called the three of them over to the counter where the register was.

I left it to Emily and moved to the bakery workshop.

“Alright, time to get started.”

I pulled out my terminal and placed orders while checking them against the renovation plan. First, I secured power by installing solar panels on the roof, then set up control equipment, storage batteries, water supply and drainage, air conditioning, and other electrical equipment. Since customers would never enter this area, I kept costs down by avoiding changes to the exterior and interior as much as possible. The electricity generated here had to go to the commercial oven for baking, so I routed the rest of the power from the neighboring storefront. In what used to be retail floor space, I built a room for making bread with new machines: a commercial oven, a commercial dough mixer, a proofer, and even a fryer with an eye toward making fried bread. I also placed a commercial refrigerator to store ingredients. After that, I set up worktables and everything else we needed, and it was finished. Since I had installed a proofer this time, I planned to stop using instant dry yeast for rising and switch to fresh yeast or natural starter. I also decided to keep the old wood-fired oven exactly as it was, as a backup for when electricity couldn’t be used.

After the workshop renovation was done, I returned to the shop.

“How’s it going?”

I called out to the three who were getting the register lesson.

“Kent-san, well, the thing is…”

Caro-san started to speak apologetically, but Catherine answered first.

“Big brother. Emily’s really bad at teaching.”

Catherine complained, looking dissatisfied.

“I’m very sorry. It seems I was unable to be of help.”

Emily apologized.

“Maybe she can’t teach it because it isn’t a skill she learned herself. Like she understands it in her head, but putting it into words is hard.”

Marie-san said.

In the end, it didn’t look like they’d made any progress. So I ended up teaching them again from the beginning.

I took my time and explained the register, the shop’s electrical systems, and how to use the kitchen equipment in a clear, easy-to-follow way. I decided we’d cover food preparation tomorrow.

“Emily, can you move to the bakery workshop next door? It should be one building now, right?”

“I’m not sure. I’ll try.”

At my prompting, Emily tried to move from the kitchen to the neighboring building, but it was like something was blocking her.

“Master… it seems I still can’t. I’m sorry I can’t be useful…”

Emily told me, looking miserable.

“It can’t be helped. Don’t worry about it. Sorry, but could you stay here and watch the shop?”

“Understood.”

I took Caro-san, Marie-san, and Catherine and went to the bakery workshop next door.

“I thought the inside would change like it did on the shop side, but it doesn’t feel very different.”

“That’s true. Budget-wise, I didn’t do much to the building itself, so it probably looks that way. But the way we make bread is going to change a lot.”

Marie-san looked a little disappointed, since the interior she’d been looking forward to was mostly unchanged.

“Big brother, what’s this huge box?”

In the space that used to be a shop, I’d arranged the new equipment for bread-making. Catherine pointed at the most imposing “box” of all—the commercial oven—and asked.

“This is the oven for baking bread. Unlike the old one that used firewood, this type heats with electricity. You can set the top and bottom temperatures separately, so it bakes the dough evenly. The finish comes out nicer, and since it has four decks, efficiency goes way up—we’ll be able to bake a lot more.”

“Huh. Okay. Then what’s this box?”

This time, she pointed at the proofer.

“This is called a proofer. It makes the yeast we need to raise the bread. Until now we’ve been mixing in powder, but with this we can make something more authentic, and if it goes well, the flavor should improve.”

There weren’t that many machines compared to the storefront, so after I explained what each one did, I decided to teach them the actual operation while we made bread.

“Making yeast in the proofer takes a bit of time, so today we’ll use instant dry yeast like usual.”

I put the ingredients for the dough into the mixer and turned it on. After that, if we waited a while, the dough should be ready. Marie-san watched with obvious interest as the machine automatically formed the dough.

“This is amazing. The dough makes itself without me kneading it.”

“I think this will make your work a lot easier, Marie-san.”

I divided the finished dough into portions, rounded them into bread shapes, and lined them up on trays. After I finished arranging them, I slid the trays into the oven, set the temperatures, and started the timer.

“When it’s done, it’ll tell us with a sound.”

“That’s all?”

Marie-san said, looking shocked.

A few minutes later, the oven beeped.

“Looks like they’re baked. Alright—here we go.”

I pulled the baked bread out of the oven.

“““Woooow!”””

The three of them stared at the finished bread, clearly amazed.

“The ingredients are the same, so I don’t think the taste will change that much, but the bake should look cleaner.”

I said. Until now, temperature control had been tricky, and hot spots sometimes caused black scorch marks. But the loaves I’d just baked were evenly colored, showing they’d baked uniformly.

“Just in case we can’t use electricity, I left the old oven as it was. Apparently, if you master it, a wood-fired oven can bake bread that tastes better than electric, but I think we’ll have to produce in volume from now on, so we’ll have to accept the trade-off.”

After I finished the basic explanation, we ate the bread we’d just made for lunch, and I decided we’d spend the afternoon doing training on how to run the shop.