An essential appliance in every kitchen, ovens are often closed compartments that are used for baking or heating purposes. Commercial ovens are efficient machines often located in restaurant kitchens that require a high turnover of food and accuracy in baking methods. The oven has been around for a very long time, with remnants of ovens found by archaeologists dating back to 3200 BC. However it was the ancient Greeks that really began to refine the baking process, inventing the front-loading oven that was used to bake all types of dough into bread and even cakes, similar to what we use today.
Whilst having the capacity to produce breads, cakes, and other baked goods, commercial ovens can also be used for roasting savoury foods like meat or casseroles. Industrial ovens can even be used to fire up non-food items like clay or other building materials. The real duty of the oven is to provide an intense and controllable amount of heat, which can be channelled into whatever a needs heating up.
The heat source in commercial ovens can come from the top or the bottom, which has a different effect on the way the food is cooked. For casseroles or food like lasagne in which a browned top is best, placing it close to a top-heating source is the way to go. However, for baked goods where an even cooking is desired, a bottom heat source is better. When in doubt, place the food in the middle of the oven.
Commercial ovens are heated using either gas or electricity. In the past, these were fired by coal or wood, and wood is still used in certain circumstances in commercial kitchens, such as in the preparation of pizza. Cooking with wood imparts some of the smoky flavour into the food. Convection ovens use a fan to move the air around the interior of the chamber, and steam ovens use a bit of water to add steam into the chamber. All of these types of ovens can be adjusted depending on what someone is cooking.
Seemingly miraculous, commercial ovens have the capacity to clean themselves. For anyone who has spent hours trying to scrub off black burnt bits from the bottom of an oven, this comes as a great boon. There are two types of methods in which they do this. Self-cleaning ovens use a blast of extreme heat to burn off the accumulated dirt, dissolving it in this manner. Continuous cleaning ovens, by contrast, are coated on the inside with a catalytic substance that works against the dirt, dissolving it slowly over time.
