Lower level press employee returning pastries with hesitation (10)
I believe the answer is:
substratum
'lower level' is the definition.
'substratum' can be an answer for 'level' (thesaurus). I'm unsure of the 'lower' bit.
'press employee returning pastries with hesitation' is the wordplay.
'press employee' becomes 'sub' (subeditor).
'returning' is a reversal indicator.
'pastries' becomes 'tarts' (tart is a kind of pastry).
'with' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'hesitation' becomes 'um' (um is said in hesitation).
'tarts' backwards is 'strat'.
'sub'+'strat'+'um'='SUBSTRATUM'
Can you help me to learn more?
(Other definitions for substratum that I've seen before include "Underlayer" , "Basis" , "foundation" .)