Enlarging from a home bakery to a commercial bakery
I am presently a dessert baker in my licensed home kitchen and am moving to a retail storefront location with a commercial dessert bakery. My proprietary recipes for cheesecakes, layer cakes, brownies, cookies, and quick breads are adapted to produce excellent desserts in my 3 home ovens. I use radiant heat for baking them. Now, I'm scaling up. I have a HUGE concern about using a commercial convection oven to bake my products--especially the cheesecakes because they are so delicate. Some of my recipes require a water bath. Some do not. Are there any issues about which I need to watch in order to have my cheesecakes turn out with the same appearance and quality of product that I'm producing in my home ovens? Any tips please? Thanks much.
Best Answer
Much would depend on exactly what ovens you are either getting for the new location or that come with the new location. The particular commercial natural gas convection ovens I get to play with sometimes have blowers that can be high, low or off - but you risk more unevenness than a home oven if the blowers are off.
Mostly you need to experiment. Initially probably with less than a full batch, and then with a batch that fills the new oven(s) or is as large as you anticipate making in the new kitchen.
For bread, I find that the CNGCO's (as expected) cook quite a bit faster than my home non-convection oven at the same temperature. You may need to adjust both temperature and time to get similar results in new equipment. If you have 3 ovens in the new space, you will probably find that each one is somewhat different that the others, even if all three are the same make and model. (Edit, Add:) While I have never baked cheesecake in those ovens, it occurs to me that the regular kitchen staff (which I am not) do that with some regularity. I happen to be more prone to making yeast bread...
Don't expect to move in and start churning out perfection right away - it would be lovely if it happens that way, but surprising.
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