Nine o'clock, calculator out
The last orders came in at eight. Now someone, usually the night manager or the owner, sits with the order book and a calculator. Sixty-two white bloomers, forty sourdough, three hundred rolls split into four types, croissants for eleven cafes. Add the extras for the shop. Work out the dough: how many mixes of white, how many of the sourdough, what that means for flour, water, salt and yeast.
Then write it on the board for the bakers, in the order the ovens should run. If a cafe rings at half nine to add ten baguettes, the sums start again.
Why the bake list stays on paper
Bakery software often handles orders and invoices well but leaves the night's production to the people who know the dough. The step from product totals to mixes depends on your recipes, your mixer sizes, your divider weights and your own habits about scrap dough and overs, and that knowledge is in the night manager's head.
- Orders are spread across a phone book, emails, texts and standing orders.
- Product totals are added up by hand for every item.
- Dough weights are scaled from recipes using a calculator.
- Mixer capacity decides how many mixes are needed, worked out each night.
- Oven order is decided from experience and written on a board.
What the late sums cost
Errors, mostly small: a product missed from the total, a mix short by a batch, a cafe's order baked twice. Each one means a short delivery or a pile of spare bread. The planning takes the most experienced person's time at the end of their day, and when they are ill, the night is harder for everyone.
The overnight planner we build
- Standing orders, one-off orders and changes all sit in one order record, so at cut-off there is one confirmed list for the night.
- The planner totals each product across all customers, plus any shop or spare quantities you set.
- Totals are converted into dough using your recipes, including dough weight per piece, scrap allowance and your mixer's maximum batch, giving the number of mixes and the weight of each ingredient per mix.
- The bake list is ordered to match how your night runs: which doughs are mixed first, which products share a prove, and the oven sequence your bakers use.
- Mixing sheets, bake lists and a tray count per product print or show on a screen in the bakehouse.
- Orders added after cut-off are shown as late additions, with the extra mix they need, so the night manager decides whether to take them.
| Sheet | Shows |
|---|---|
| Order totals | Each product, all customers, plus extras |
| Mixing sheet | Mixes per dough and ingredient weights |
| Bake list | Products in oven order, with trays |
| Late additions | What changed after cut-off |
Your recipes and your night manager's rules drive the planner. It does the arithmetic, not the baking.
What the night looks like
At cut-off the sheets are ready. The night manager checks them rather than building them, and starts the first mix sooner. Late orders are visible as late orders. The totals and mixes are the same whoever is running the night, and the paper trail of what was baked for whom is there in the morning.
The owner gets something useful as well: a record of what was baked each night against what was ordered, which is the starting point for questions about overs, returns and which products are worth their oven space.
Is this your bakery at nine o'clock?
- Product totals are added up by hand each night.
- Dough weights are scaled with a calculator.
- Only one or two people can build the night's plan.
- Late orders mean redoing the sums.
- The bake list lives on a whiteboard.