Conventional baking in the kitchen – Aurora Mazzucchelli

“The oven is able to decide for itself how best to proceed with cooking, with a sensitivity that is usually only human”

After Franco Aliberti and Igor Macchia, the new protagonist of our in-depth appointments on baking is Aurora Mazzucchelli, Chef at ‘Casa Mazzucchelli’ in Sasso Marconi (BO), the meeting place between haute cuisine and leavened products that she runs together with her brother Massimo.
The restaurant has courageously changed its format recently, renouncing the Michelin Star and making leavened products, which take different forms in each course, and are the real focus of the new proposal.
Aurora Mazzucchelli is part of our #RoadToSmartBaking community because among the ingredients she uses every day in her restaurant, she has also chosen the S series heat.

What products do you make with S series?
We bake a little bit of everything because ‘Casa Mazzucchelli’ project unites both ‘Casa Mazzucchelli’ and ‘Forno Mollica’, so we start with breakfast in the morning preparing things like “veneziane” – round shaped brioche ed. -, panettone and colomba – of course when is their season – and everything that can be defined as a ‘great leavened’ product.
In addition, for both the restaurant and the shop, we also offer sandwich breads, loaves and all so-called classic bakery. Furthermore, thanks to S series oven equipped with two decks, I can diversify production at the same time: in the lower deck I continue my concept of pizza, focaccia, etc.

Since you have been using Moretti Forni, how has your work changed?
I have been working with S series for quite some time now, precisely six years. Certainly, like all high-performance equipment, you need the right amount of time to ‘get to know it’; there are so many functions and possibilities that the oven can offer. Once its full potential is understood, daily use becomes easy and intuitive, making baking a fundamental step in the success of a product, in the sense that certain baking processes cannot be replicated with another equipment, so S series for us is an important part of the production chain.

More and more professionals rely on deck ovens (compared to convection ones): what do you reckon?
Having the possibility of including a deck oven in your kitchen layout is certainly an added value, because you can achieve customised baking, not only in the world of leavened products, but also in all gastronomic preparations.
I, for example, have a lot of fun using the oven ‘in caduta’, when I have to cook large pieces of meat: first I marinate them with aromatic herbs, then I put them in the switched off oven, previously used for baking focaccia or pan pizzas, or to toast the pulses that I will use as a side dish. With the heat reducing slowly, I can close the circle of the whole process, from the initial toasting to a gentle baking.
The result is a product that retains all its liquids inside, is baked well and releases amazing aromas.

Many chefs say they have tried baking the same product, with the same recipe, first in a ventilated or combi oven and then in the deck oven, and it was totally different…
Yes, it is different. As far as I’m concerned, especially for lamb bellies, legs, or even really big pieces of meat, the difference is really tangible in terms of both taste and texture.
I also find that static – no fan assisted – cooking is really versatile. For example, for my ‘Boar’s belly with whole-grain pan pizza, broad beans, pods and herbs’ I use S series all- round, being able to exploit all stages of heat. In fact, in the initial phase, I can ‘colour’ very well both the pods and the broad beans with the herbs from the garden, putting them in the oven together raw. When a higher temperature is reached, I proceed with toasting, at 260 °C for about 15 to 20 minutes, with 60% top and 50% deck.
Subsequently, as I do not need very high temperatures, I can turn off the oven and, with the heat retained by the refractory surface, cook the previously marinated boar’s belly ‘in caduta’, aka when the temperature is going down. Thanks to the oven’s construction characteristics, all the heat remains inside the chamber, ensuring perfect, high-performance cooking even with the temperature lowering. The whole-grain pan pizza I prepare beforehand instead: it is a three-ferment pre-baked pan pizza, blast chilled and then regenerated during service.

You mentioned pre-baking and regenerating the pan pizza: what role does S series play in your line?
S series is a fundamental element: mine is a concept of cooking combined with leavened products, therefore the first step has to be prepared in advance, so that during the service I only have to assemble what has been done before in the oven, and proceed with the ‘express’ cooking that will go with the leavened product.

Conventional baking increases the shelf-life of products, especially in yeast products. What is your point of view?
I notice this a lot! Of course, on pan pizzas, focacce, bread and especially big leavened products. I can say that the products remain intact as if just taken out of the oven, not undergoing any change in their characteristics.

What do you think of the compact dimensions of both the S series and the new X series?
It is a huge step forward. We are always talking about super intelligent machines on which we only need to spend a little time to fully understand all the functionalities to make the most of them. Once the work has been set up, and even more with this new evolution, the operator is relieved and helped in many things, both in terms of time and concentration, because the oven goes on by itself while you do other things… In this way you manage to standardise the work because the oven is able to decide for itself how best to proceed with baking, with a sensitivity that is usually only human.

Did you enjoy this interview? Don’t miss the next protagonist, the “pizzaricercatore” Renato Bosco!