186 Du Cane Road, London W12 0BJ Company 17428571 Three climates, one run
What the cabinet holds
The counter at 186 Du Cane Road is a single run with three different climates in it: a dry dome, a chilled deck and a hot cabinet. Nothing moves between them without a reason written on a card, and nothing is restocked by eye. This sheet sets out what each climate holds, what governs it, and the four moves that fill and empty it across a day.
Three climates, left to right
ClimateA1
- Ambient dome
- Dry goods with no filling and nothing dairy on the outside: shortbread, cookies, plain biscuit.
- Governed by
- The bake date, not a temperature. The lid stays down between services.
- Handled with
- Tissue or tongs, never a bare hand. The crumb tray comes out at close.
- Emptied
- At close, by count, against the par written on the board that morning.
ClimateA2
- Chilled deck
- Filled and iced goods, cream, cut fruit, anything that has met dairy after baking.
- Held at
- 1 °C to 4 °C on the dial, with 8 °C the ceiling that must not be crossed.
- Loaded
- From the back, so the oldest tray is at the front where the hand falls first.
- Read
- At open, at the middle of the day and at close — a number and initials, never a tick.
ClimateA3
- Hot cabinet
- Savoury items only. Nothing goes in warm from the oven; it goes in hot or it waits on the rack.
- Held at
- 63 °C or above, proved with a probe rather than trusted to the dial.
- If it drops
- Below 63 °C a two-hour clock starts, once. At the end of it the item is sold, reheated to 70 °C for two minutes, or thrown.
- Marked
- Every item carries the time it went in, written on the tray card.
The four moves of a day
A counter is restocked four times, and each move has a different job. Two of them put stock out, one takes stock back, and the last one empties the run and writes down what was left. The moves are the same whoever is on, which is the only reason a count at close means anything.
| Move | When | What happens on the run |
|---|---|---|
| Open-up | Before the door is unlocked | Deck and cabinet readings are written down first, before anything is loaded. The dome is filled from dry stock checked against its bake date. The first trays go in the deck oven, and the hot cabinet is brought up to temperature empty. |
| Mid-morning bake | Once the dome has gone down | A second bake covers the dome and the deck together. Filled items are built on the bench, not in the deck, and go in only when the sponge is cold. The rack is cleared before anything new lands on it. |
| Afternoon re-count | After the middle of the day | Everything is counted against the board. Items short of their par and worth baking are listed; items past their time are pulled to the bench, counted and taken off the run. This is the move that stops a close-down becoming a surprise. |
| Close-down | From the last order | The run is emptied in the same order it was filled. Withdrawals are counted and written down before anything goes to food waste, the deck is read one last time, the ice well is emptied and washed, and the dome and its crumb tray come apart. |
The board, the par and the count
A par level is a number on a wipe-clean board, not a feeling about a morning. Each line on the board carries one item and three figures: the par it is stocked to, the number counted at the afternoon re-count, and the number withdrawn at close. Nothing else goes on that board, because a board with opinions on it stops being read.
The count at close is what sets the next par. If an item is withdrawn two days running, its par comes down before the recipe is blamed; if it is short before the afternoon move, its par goes up and the bake order changes rather than the batch size. The batch yield sheet on sheet 01 does the arithmetic once a par has been decided — it divides, it does not predict.
Stock never crosses the pass. Everything loaded onto the run arrives from behind it, so nobody carries a tray through the place where orders are handed over. It is the one rule on this sheet with no temperature in it, and the one that keeps the other three workable at a busy hour.
Written down at the counterB1
- Par board
- One line per item: par, counted, withdrawn. Wiped and rewritten each morning.
- Deck log
- Three readings a day with initials against each.
- Cabinet log
- Probe readings for the hot cabinet, and the time any item went in.
- Withdrawal count
- What came off the run at close, by item and number, before food waste.