It's 3 a.m., and Terry V. Castro's day has already begun.

Castro is a baker for Harvard Dining Services. As one of the first employees to arrive at the bakery every morning, Castro has a very important mission: "I have to make the doughnuts," he says.

The bakery, in the basement of Eliot House, is the source of Harvard's Congo Bars, danishes, brownies, Morning Glory Muffins and of course, doughnuts; it is also the invisible force behind "Pie Night."

"Basically anything [baked] you see on the serving line, it was produced here," says bakery manager Bonnie L. Sanchez-Ramirez.

But nothing on that serving line comes before the doughnuts. The slow speed of the doughnut machine--a "Donut Robot"--requires an early start for the bakers. "The hour is dictated by the doughnuts," says Sanchez-Ramirez. "It almost seems comical that decisions are based on how to get the doughnuts out," she says.

The Donut Robot dispenses doughnuts from a conveyor belt at the rate of 24 dozen an hour. To make the 80 or 90 dozen doughnuts that Harvard consumes each morning takes nearly three hours.

By 6:05 a.m., breakfast items are ready to be delivered by truck to the undergraduate houses. The early hours have paid off, according to Sanchez-Ramirez: "By the time that [the Harvard Union] gets their coffee cake, it's still warm. This is as close to home- baked as you're going to get."

Aluminum pie tins, racks of chocolate chip cookies and sheet pans of cornbread indicate that the bakery produces much more than breakfast for early-riser undergraduates. Lunch items, such as bar cookies, and dinner items, such as cheesecakes, are also prepared there.

The bakery also serves the Cronkhite Graduate Center, Dudley House, the biology labs and Conroy Commons; some goods are delivered to the Faculty Club, and the bakery even has its own catering center, "Crimson Catering."

Producing baked goods for undergraduates, however, is what creates the "hectic" atmosphere of the kitchen, says Sanchez-Ramirez. Between 9 and 10 a.m., she says, "we've got dinner items going in the oven...lunch items going out the door."

"From my position, it's exciting to see how it all works," she says.

The element of surprise also creates some excitement in the kitchen, the bakers say. "As soon as you walk in the door, you don't know what to expect,"Sanchez-Ramirez says about opening the building inthe morning.

The bakers describe visits they've had fromEliot House Grille workers, other curious studentsand even firefighters. Ken E. Morash says that oneparticularly early morning, he came in to findstudents who had gotten into the desserts. "Theysaid they were hungry," Morash explains. Sincethen, he says, the bakery has increased itssecurity precautions.

Another time, the bakery had a minor fire. Thefirefighters who came to put it out were "300pounders," says Sanchez-Ramirez. Several of thefiremen grabbed cookies off the racks and seemed"much more interested in the food than in thefire," she says.

Other visitors to the bakery are more ordinary,Castro says. "Once in a while a police officerwill come by. A student will smell the baking orhear the radio, and come by to see what's goingon. I show them around. Once in a while they'llask for cookies or brownies to take back to theroom," he says.

Tom J. Scocca '93 is one of the students whohas discovered the bakery. A resident of G-entryin Eliot House, Scocca doesn't always smell thearoma of baking brownies, but he says there areother signs of the "secret" bakery below. "We didknow we had this wall that radiated all this heatfor no clear reason," he says.