The oven is frequently the unsung hero of a busy home, helping to crisp up Sunday roasts, baked goods like cakes and cookies, and the (occasional) frozen pizza. Your kitchen is practically devoid of an oven. An oven is a necessary household item, but you should choose which kind best suits your needs and tastes before you purchase one.
Finding the right oven for your kitchen with so many brands and varieties to select from may be a challenge. Canstar Blue has produced a list of the sorts of ovens below to assist you in your decision-making process, whether you’re a kitchen newbie or a culinary master.
Conventional vs. Convection Ovens
Aside from how your oven is fueled, the type of oven you pick will be determined by several things. Most ovens are divided into conventional and convection, each with its own set of cooking advantages.
The most significant difference is in the way the oven cooks your food, namely how it heats the air within. A traditional oven warms from the bottom up, but pockets of colder air might accumulate in some regions, resulting in uneven cooking. Convection ovens, on the other hand, use a fan to circulate heated air from the rear and can often be set to a lower temperature than traditional ovens while still producing the same results. However, because it circulates air, pans and dishes with high edges may affect how effectively your food is cooked, so be aware of what you’re cooking in.
Gas Ovens
Gas ovens have been a popular choice for many families for decades, and the models are frequently less expensive to run in the long run than their electric counterparts. However, as more families abandon gas appliances and mains connections, you may find yourself with a larger payment than anticipated if your property does not already have a natural gas line attached.
While gas ovens are less expensive to run, they are typically more expensive up front, so you’ll have to decide if you want to pay more upfront and save more in the long run or the other way around. Furthermore, the type of food you usually cook in an oven can influence your ultimate selection, as gas ovens do not brown food as well as electric ovens. On the other hand, gas ovens produce more moisture, making them perfect for those large juicy roasts.
Electric Ovens
Electric ovens are the most prevalent alternative for families, accounting for most of the market and being less expensive to purchase than gas ovens. With numerous brands and model kinds to choose from, an electric oven could be your best pick if you’re searching for something special or prefer to have a lot of alternatives.
Electric ovens are typically seen to be easier to clean, use, and cook with if you want a more uniform result, making them perfect for frozen pizzas and baking. While they may influence your power cost, they may be the greatest option if you’re unsure what you’re looking for. Electric ovens may be divided into convection and standard ovens for even more variation, so you’ll be able to pick one that’s right for you.
Steam Ovens
While steam ovens aren’t for everyone, they’ve grown in popularity in recent years, with the water-based oven providing a viable alternative for customers. Steam ovens function by injecting water into a boiler, either by a separate canister or a connection to the water supply, and then heating the oven with the steam. Because steam reduces the need for oils, it might be a healthier option for homes.
Steam ovens preserve more nutrients and shorten cooking periods, but they may affect how crispy your food turns out, so they may not be the ideal option for everyone. Furthermore, steam ovens are more expensive than regular ovens, costing upwards of $1,000 for entry-level units.
Oven Sizes
When it comes to ovens, the size and capacity of the oven you choose will be determined by the size and capacity of your household, as well as whether or not your home is the regular site for Sunday night dinners, with many manufacturers providing both single and double ovens.
Single Ovens
Single ovens are often designed to fit anywhere in your kitchen, whether under the counter or at eye level. Most single versions are standing approximately 60cm tall, allowing enough pans and containers to fit in the oven. A single oven is more suitable for smaller homes or households who may not use the oven frequently, as it can handle the majority of your cooking needs.
Double Ovens
A double oven is two single ovens placed on top of each other, generally between 72 and 90cm height, and is more appropriate for larger families or people who want to cook in quantity. The major advantage of a double oven is that it allows families to cook in one oven while grilling in the other, making large dinners and roasts easier to prepare.
Self-Cleaning Ovens
While no one can dispute how helpful an oven is, cleaning it is undoubtedly one of the most tedious home tasks, with oil and burned food being the misery of many. Thankfully, self-cleaning ovens are widely accessible. However this convenient feature isn’t available on all models, so keep an eye out if you want to cut down on cleaning time.
Pyrolytic and Catalytic self-cleaning ovens are two types of self-cleaning ovens that clean your oven in various ways. The more popular variety, Pyrolytic, heats up to 500 degrees, efficiently burning any food residue left behind and leaving consumers to sweep up the ashes. In contrast, Catalytic ovens are coated with specific chemicals that absorb any food spills to make general cleanup easier.
A self-cleaning feature, regardless of the one you select, may cost you more money, but it may be well worth it if you want to cut down on your duties.
Warming Drawers
While not found in every kitchen, a warming drawer may be the difference between a successful meal and a disaster since it can be used to keep plates and foods warm when you’re short on time. Warming drawers may also be used to thaw food, which comes in useful if you forget to take the chicken out of the fridge.
Warming drawers are often put in a wall cavity, usually above or below the oven, with an electrical panel situated in the drawer’s top inner edge for a streamlined look. While a warming drawer isn’t essential for most families, if you often host dinner parties at your home or are awful at mixing all the ingredients of a meal while they’re still warm, it’s worth checking into.
Fan Oven
An oven with a fan to spread the heat generated by a circular element surrounding the fan is shown as a fan in a circle. The heat distribution should ideally be even so that the food cooks correctly every time, regardless of where it is placed in the oven.
Fan ovens are meant to heat up quickly, cut down on cooking time, and save energy. Fan ovens are ideal for baking many pans at once (biscuits, cupcakes, and muffins on the top, middle and lower shelves, respectively). They’re also a good choice if you want your meat cooked in the ‘chefy’ manner, with a delicate outside and a rare inside.
If you have a combo oven and wish to utilize the fan, there will be no circle around the fan on the symbol.
Conventional Heating
Traditional heating is represented by two lines, one at the top and one at the bottom of a square. The lines depict the two heating components utilized in the oven, one at the top and one at the bottom. Natural convection distributes the heat instead of using a fan. For roasting meat and vegetables or baking pastries, use the traditional heating mode.
Bottom Element Heat
The sign for the lower heating element in use is a single line at the bottom of a square. This approach is perfect for baking something like pizza, which requires a crispy foundation. It may also be used to cook a casserole.
Bottom Element Heating With Grill
This function is represented as a square with a zigzag (grill) line at the top and a straight line at the bottom. It’s a useful feature for making pies, quiches, and crisping pizzas.
Fan With Grill
The zigzag line at the top of a square with the fan sign beneath is the symbol. The grill roasts from the top while the fan spreads the heat. To keep the temperature set, the grill turns on and off. This method is great for meat and poultry preparation.
Grill
A zigzag line at the top of a square is the sign. You can cook food for almost your entire family and guests when you use the complete grill. There may also be a half-grill mode, which heats the grill element in the center. To ensure uniform cooking, place food in the center of the pan. Use your grill to create toast or toasted sandwiches, melt and brown cheese over lasagne, and make wonderful mushroom steaks.
Oven Light
The emblem is a light bulb in a square, as you might expect. Some ovens have a light switch that you have to turn on and off to see what’s cooking, while others have a light switch that you have to turn on and off to see what’s cooking.
Oven Defrosting
Defrost isn’t available on all ovens, but if yours does, it’ll be shown by a symbol that looks like a snowflake over a drop of water. The oven fan is turned on in this mode, but no heat is produced. The food defrosts as a result of the air circulation. It’s ideal if you neglected to thaw food overnight and need to make a rapid decision.
Warming Oven
A dish with ‘steam’ lines rising over it is the emblem. Use this feature to keep food warm without having to cook it. When utilizing the warming feature, the food should stay wet and not dry out.
Plate Warming
Three dishes are arranged horizontally over one another as the emblem for this function. Plates must be served warm according to dinner party etiquette. This setting keeps your plates warm while preventing damage to the china.
Conventional Ovens
For cooking, traditional ovens use an electric element or a gas burner. Heat radiates up and pushes cold air down in this sort of oven, resulting in uneven cooking or baking. On the other hand, this sort of oven is quite popular and generally comes built-in or as part of the kitchen range.
Convection Ovens
Convection ovens prepare food in a unique way. A fan at the back circulates air throughout the oven, ensuring that food is cooked evenly. This also leads to faster heating and is believed to use less energy. In comparison to a regular oven, the cooking time will be longer.
Microwave Ovens
These are the ‘ovens’ that the majority of you have. They’re most commonly used for heating and defrosting, and they work by using radio waves. Some microwave-oven-specific recipes are the best for baking in the microwave. If you try to cook a regular recipe in the microwave, it may not turn out properly, so don’t do it.
Microwave cum Convection Ovens
These are all the rage right now! It’s a microwave oven with a convection oven option, which means that by turning a knob, your microwave transforms into a regular oven (convection type), and you can bake your cakes, cookies, and other baked goods, as usual, using the same recipes. Some of these ovens also have a grilling function, which you may utilize as well.