okay, so heres the story. im renting a bread bakery to run my cake business. the bread bakes on the oven floor, but obviously my cakes can't, i need air circulation. so i've been bringing my personal oven racks from home to set in the bread oven to elevate my cakes. i've been stacking both racks to create more space between the floor of the oven and the cake pans. i can only do 4 cakes at a time like this though, so here's my question:

how much space for air circulation is required under the cakes for proper baking? with both racks doubled i get just under an inch. with just one rack i only get 1/2 inch. is a half inch enough? i want to be able to bake lots of cakes at once, and so to use both racks individually instead of doubled would help. i would like some opinions on if this would work before lugging my stuff out there and testing it only to find out it doesn't work.

any thoughts?

Would love to hear some info on this.....

Here's a bump....

Is the bread oven a convection oven ?

I learned in pastry school that you really want about 3 to 4 inches between the cake and the heating element/bottom. I don't have a solution to your problem though. sorry. I hope this helps.

In cakes class in school we had a pizza/bread oven only to use. Most of the time the bottom was just lined with upside down sheet pans. Gives an air cushion. Try that.

just thought of a stupid question for you koryak:

were the sheet pans flipped upside down? or were they right side up, and the cake you were baking had to be a larger diameter to sit on it? just wondering which direction would create better air flow....

i'm not positive if these are oven-safe, and if so to what temperature, but they would give you 3" or space per rack.
http://www.wilton.com/store/site/product.cfm?id=4CD572DB-802D-F658-00FB75AA1C7D8437&fid=4CD572FA-802D-F658-08CB259074C710C6

upside down pans