Hopefully we’ll get an authoritative answer from someone who works at one of those places.
But if I had to wager on it, I’d wager that they all use a similar simple cheap recipe, and it’s just part of their daily routine of stuff that they make.
If you’ve ever paid attention to a Chinese takeout type place (I know, not necessarily the same thing) then you’ll notice they all have a giant pot of this sauce/stock stuff that they use in almost every dish. Every day someone comes in and prepares a big batch of that stuff (it’s made from soy sauce and a few other simple ingredients). Then just ladle it out all day as they cook up each order. They would never do this for home cooking, but for a restaurant it makes total sense.
So my guess is some poor bastard comes in early in the morning and dumps some giant box of cheap industrial cake mix into a huge mixing bowl with some other basic ingredients and then just spreads it out in a pan and throws it in a commercial oven. It’s not a ton of work, and you can do other things while it’s baking.
It’s true a lot of restaurants outsource their baked goods and desserts, but my guess for a buffet which is operating on lean margins, they would not.
Hopefully we’ll get an authoritative answer from someone who works at one of those places.
But if I had to wager on it, I’d wager that they all use a similar simple cheap recipe, and it’s just part of their daily routine of stuff that they make.
If you’ve ever paid attention to a Chinese takeout type place (I know, not necessarily the same thing) then you’ll notice they all have a giant pot of this sauce/stock stuff that they use in almost every dish. Every day someone comes in and prepares a big batch of that stuff (it’s made from soy sauce and a few other simple ingredients). Then just ladle it out all day as they cook up each order. They would never do this for home cooking, but for a restaurant it makes total sense.
So my guess is some poor bastard comes in early in the morning and dumps some giant box of cheap industrial cake mix into a huge mixing bowl with some other basic ingredients and then just spreads it out in a pan and throws it in a commercial oven. It’s not a ton of work, and you can do other things while it’s baking.
It’s true a lot of restaurants outsource their baked goods and desserts, but my guess for a buffet which is operating on lean margins, they would not.