A bakery oven is an oversized cooking appliance that is often found in professional kitchens. The internal cooking space is often defined as having bakery depth, which means that it is wider and longer from the front to the back than a traditional, kitchen sized oven. These ovens include many internal baking racks that can be adjusted for height. They may be single or double stacked, and must be installed professionally.
This type of oven is designed to accommodate a large capacity of bakery items being cooked at one time. It can typically hold multiple full sized baking trays at once. Internal dimensions are roughly 30 inches (76 centimeters) from side to side, 27 inches (68.6 centimeters) front to back, and 24 inches (61 centimeters) in height.
Food inside the bakery oven may be accessed through a bottom hinge door or French doors. A bottom hinge door opens identically to a standard kitchen style oven. Ovens featuring French doors provide two access panels which are hinged on the left and right sides of the opening. Handles in the center allow users to open these panels outwards, similarly to opening a house door. They are generally designed from stainless steel or glass.
These appliances are typically fueled using natural gas or liquid propane. Some models include internal fans with multiple speed settings to circulate warmed air around the food. This can both expedite the required cooking time, and cook food evenly without burning or undercooking it.
Most styles of bakery oven can be mounted on a stainless steel stand or built into a kitchen wall. They often weigh between 500 and 600 pounds (between 227 kilograms and 272 kilograms) and require professional delivery and installation. Units may be single or double capacity, in which two ovens are built one on top of the other. Stainless steel stands may also be fitted with casters which allow the unit to be rolled from one location in the kitchen to another, depending on the needs of the baker.
The bakery oven may also include a proofing unit. This is an area that is separate from the oven in which items made using yeast are stored while they rise prior to baking. Both the temperature and the humidity of the proofer may be controlled externally by the baker. The oven is often mounted on top of the proofer and then delivered together as one complete unit.
