I just took an order for 600 Calzones for a school fundraiser. They have pre sold them and are going to freeze them and package them with reheating instructions. They did this last year with pasties( a WI Thing) only and decided to offer a calzone also this year. They asked me to make them and they will buy them for $3.50 each. They are providing the packaging. When I orginally agreed to this I expect maybe 200 would be ordered, now I get a number of 600 and they are due Saturday evening. We don’t normally offer calzones so I had to do some experamenting with my ovens and dough. I am using a 8oz dough ball and cooking for 10 min @ 375. Have any of you had orders like this and how did you go about doing it while still dealing with normal business? Any tips or tricks would be helpful.
yup I have been there it wasnt 600 though it was only around 400. We also used our 8" dough but our ovens are at 550 so we cut off about 1.5oz dough so the crust is thinner and the inside gets baked properly we also cut 4 slits in the top to let the steam out. Normally we make them right in the pizza pan but when we have big orders we use our large bakeing sheets I think we got about 16 per sheet and we can fit 3 sheets in each oven (we have 2-BP Y600) so that is 96 at one time. I put each pan in about 3 minutes apart so they dont all come out at once. The other difference was we made these for a hot lunch order so we wrapped them up ans put them in boxes to transport to the school. If yours are being frozen it should be easier as you can do some each day I would pick your slowest time and start baking them ASAP and you should be allright.
Work out exactly how long the calzones {the 600} are going to take in the oven, try to fit as many in or next to each other as possible.If you have a conveyor oven place the trays in the oven enough for 60 calzones and time how long that will be then multiply that by 10. This is a very big order to do at once.Maybe you could do 3 orders of 200 each.
hope this helps
Pasties? What the heck is a pastie that a school would want to sell? Certainly not what I know a pastie to be?
This is a defination I found on pastys.com "Pasty is pronounced, “pass-tee” and was brought to the Upper Peninsula by the wives of the Cornish Miners in the early 1850’s. The traditional pasty had beef, potatoes, onion, carrots, and rutabaga baked inside a golden crust; a filling meal for the men who worked in the copper and iron mines. "
Well thats a different pasties than they use at the strip clubs. Sorry, still a bit delirious after super bowl and couldn’t resist the word play.
Can I make them ahead of time?, say a day. Then bake them all the morning they want to pick them up. Or since they are going to freeze them can I make them, bake them and put them in the walkin until they want them?
If you bake them, let them cool to chilled, and then wrap them that day for the freezer. Leaving them overnight or a day or two would let them dry out a bit. If brushed with butter when warm, they should reheat fabulously in oven after being thawed in fridge.
One hint is that fat protects products from drying out and poor texture after freezing. Veggies can get really mooshy, but some fat and meat to help out should do fine. Think about the toppings you tend to get on frozen pizzas and you’ll see what does and doesn’t freeze well.
I am envious of your venture . . . and glad at the same time that we aren’t pumping out 600 in one day. We aren’t set up for that. We’d have to do it over a couple or three days and freeze as we went.
It’s Now 700! I just got a call with the final number and they want 700. I am going to start making them today, 140 a day for 5 days. They are all pepperoni & sausage. I plan on baking them and then putting them on a rack to cool for a little bit, then wrap them up and freeze them. I am going to brush them with garlic butter and sprinkle some parm/rom cheese on they after they bake, how do you think this will hold up to freezing and reheating?
Sounds good, only thing id mention is not to cool them a bit, but to cool them completely first. You dont want them doing any steaming in the plastic wrap and end up with gooey dough. :shock:
THEY ARE FINALLY DONE! WE DID IT ! All Went well, staff was very helpful and volunteered their Friday night to get it done.