Abstract: A cooking appliance includes a cooking compartment and an exhaust system. The cooking compartment defines a cooking cavity. Moreover, the exhaust system includes a cooling duct for delivering ambient air to the cooking cavity, an exhaust duct for receiving exhaust gas from the cooking cavity and discharging the exhaust gas to an ambient atmosphere, and a fan that is operable to motivate ambient air from the ambient atmosphere through the exhaust system such that a first portion of ambient air flows into the cooling duct, and a second portion of ambient air different from the first portion flows into the exhaust duct.