Burned two batches of croissants at the community oven in Austin last month

I was so excited to use the new wood-fired oven at the co-op bakery space. I thought I had the temp dialed in but the bottom got scorched on both trays. Lost about 6 hours of work and like $30 in butter. Turns out that oven runs way hotter on the floor than the thermometer reads. The person running the space didn't warn me either. Has anyone else had issues with uneven heat in shared ovens?

3 comments

3 Comments

joseph_bailey9d ago

Oh man I feel your pain, I ruined a whole batch of sourdough in a similar shared oven setup. What finally worked for me was putting a pizza stone on the bottom rack to diffuse the heat and rotating my stuff every 10 minutes.

abbyf799d ago

Learned that lesson the hard way myself a few years back. Shared ovens are tricky because nobody takes the time to really learn them. I started bringing an infrared thermometer with me to check the actual floor temp before putting anything in. It saved me a lot of burned dough and wasted butter. A pizza stone is a good idea but I would also try putting a sheet pan with sand on the bottom rack to soak up some of that direct heat. That is what an old baker taught me and it works well for even baking.

sam_cooper8d ago

...and that's exactly why I bring a few sacrificial croissants now. I call them my "canary in the coal mine" pastries. But honestly, I've messed up so many batches I should just accept that my croissants are gonna be more like charcoal biscuits. The sand trick with the sheet pan is genius though. I've been using a stack of old pizza stones but I still end up with a bottom that's darker than my soul after a bad tenants' meeting. Someday I'll get it right, right?