Ovens: Conventional Wisdom

There�s more to conventional ovens than baking cookies.

By Lisa Bertagnoli -- Restaurants & Institutions, 4/1/2007

The time-tested conventional oven isn’t the trendiest piece of equipment these days. Wood-burning models and even convection ovens get more press. But most kitchens, especially those with extensive dessert menus, can’t get by without a conventional oven.

Malika Ameen, pastry chef and co-owner of 88-seat Aigre Doux, a French-Mediterranean restaurant in Chicago, chooses a conventional oven for desserts that she says “require a gentle touch.” These include apple bread pudding with crème fraîche sauce ($10), and chocolate mascarpone cake with roasted Seckel pear and dulce de leche ($10). Nonconvected heat keeps signature lavender butter cookies from browning and also helps chocolate cake retain moisture. “A lot of things don’t like high heat,” Ameen says of her convection oven.

The oven is equipped with a range top, handy for making sauces and also boiling water for desserts that bake in a water bath. It also is big enough to hold a full sheet pan. Ameen plans to use the conventional oven for savory items, such as strudels and quiches, when Aigre Doux opens a 25-seat bakery this spring.

At 150 Chartwells School Dining Services accounts in the Midwest, conventional ovens are used to prepare pizzas, chicken patties, sweet-potato fries and roasted vegetables, says Jennifer Brower, executive chef for Chartwells’ Midwest region, based in Grand Rapids, Mich.

The ovens, on the main cooking line, are baker’s depth, large enough to accommodate sheet pans without their getting too close to the oven’s sides to ensure even baking.

Most of the school kitchens have an oven; if they do not, “it’s definitely a goal,” Brower says.

Hot From The Healthful Oven

Nothing says "healthful" like something from the conventional oven, at least according to Jennifer Brower, executive regional chef for the Chartwells unit of Compass Group who oversees 150 primary-school foodservice accounts in Michigan, Indiana and Ohio.

Recipes reworked for oven baking are central to Chartwells’ A Balanced Choice wellness program. "If there’s a way to cook items sufficiently at a much higher nutritional value, that’s what we’re doing," Brower says.

Oven-baked items on Chartwells menus include:

Fruit crisps: "If you increase the fruit component, it counts as a fruit," Brower says. Apple-cranberry is a favorite combination, so is blueberry-pear.

House-baked breads: For sandwiches.

Personal-size pizzas: Also calzone and strombolis.

Roasted vegetables: Zucchini, carrots, onions, peppers and yellow squash marinate in Italian dressing or olive oil and balsamic vinegar and are roasted on the top shelf at 425F to 450F.

Sweet-potato fries: For a fun and different side.

Potato wedges: Sliced potatoes sprinkled with black pepper and sprayed with garlic-flavored oil mist are baked at 425F to 450F until crisp.

Lisa Bertagnoli is a Chicago-based freelance writer.