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Do you have an old oven that is starting to give some trouble and no longer cooks in the lower part as it once did? Have you decided to change your built-in appliance, but don’t know which one to choose?
No problem, because in this guide you will find all the information you need to make the best decision. Here are the decisive factors to understand how to choose the perfect oven for you.
Domestic ovens are divided into two large categories based on power supply, which are either gas or electric. The former are the ones that allow us to save the most in terms of electricity bills, but the latter are the ones that according to many, cook better. Although there are only two macro categories, however, the market offers a myriad of different models, with different characteristics and functions.
Before making a mess and ruining your wonderful recipes, you should learn how to choose the most suitable oven for your needs. Not all ovens are the same, even within the same category: in order to make the best decision possible you will have to evaluate different elements, such as the cooking methods, the space available, the types of ovens available.
The choice of an oven should not be made only considering the best value for money, but above all on the basis of the use you will make of it. If you love cooking meat and fish, for example, you will need a ventilated type, while if you want to create magnificent cakes for your children’s birthday parties, then a static one might be better. Is your electricity bill already high enough and you know that you will have to use this appliance a lot? In that case, you better bet on a gas oven.
Who Needs a Baking Oven and Why?
Ovens for baking cakes are among the most useful instruments in a kitchen. First and foremost, they are often required when baking, but their multifunctional abilities go far beyond. Cake baking ovens make your life easier and will allow you to try many more recipes. Ovens also represent an important piece of design to showcase in your kitchen, as they come in several shapes, colors, sizes, and materials. A baking oven will allow you to impress your guests with delicious new plates and desserts, and surely you’ll get your money’s worth. Let’s see the main types of oven for baking cakes.
What Are the Differences Between Gas, Electric and Convection Ovens?
Gas Oven for Baking
The costs, the ease of use, and the speed in reaching high temperatures are certainly the main strengths of gas ovens for baking cakes, however, the fact of having the burner that sometimes goes to the maximum and occasionally to the minimum involves difficulties in correct cooking management.
The oven tends therefore to dry or scorch some parts of the food and to quickly lose the humidity of the food being cooked. In general, gas ovens are ideal for cooking pizza and the like (which require temperatures above 220 ° C), while for other preparations such as leavened desserts, cakes, biscuits, but also soufflés and cream puffs is electric oven is preferable.
Electric Oven for Baking
Electric ovens have many strengths as well. In addition to being very simple to use, they are versatile, they maintain food humidity better and the temperature regulation is more accurate and uniform. However, the operating costs are higher than in gas ovens. So, who wins in the war of gas vs electric ovens for baking cakes?
However, the future will see the most cutting-edge research in the field of electric ovens, that are increasingly intelligent and less impacting on consumption and pollution.
Within a static oven, cooking is slower and less uniform and is suitable for all preparations that contain yeast (both sweet and savory) such as bread, pizza, cakes, sponge cake, and much more, which will be dry and cooked evenly. Ventilated cooking, being faster and more homogeneous, makes foods crisp on the outside, but soft on the inside and is perfect for meats, roasts, chicken, fish, vegetables, baked pasta, pies, and biscuits.
Convection Oven for Baking
What does a convection oven mean? It is simple: it means that the oven uses hot air that circulates with a convection motion inside the oven. Thermal convection occurs when hot air comes into contact with a body whose temperature is lower than that of the air. In the specific case, the hot air is that of the oven chamber, and the food has a lower temperature. The oven cooks in a ventilated way, it circulates the air and obtains a better final result. What can we expect from the best convection ovens? Through the convective motions generated in the room, will help you achieve more uniform cooking of the food, even in large quantities.
Using a Microwave for Baking Cakes
Yes, the best microwave ovens will allow you to bake cakes! Today technology gives us appliances that can do practically anything, and therefore greatly facilitate manual work. If you own a multifunctional microwave oven, you can use it to cook a cake in a few minutes.
Using a Toaster Oven for Baking Cakes
Yes, you can use a toaster oven to bake almost anything you can bake in a regular oven. However, remember to turn your cake at least once, and that the hottest spots are in the back, therefore you shouldn’t cook something too big, or it will get overcooked in the back and undercooked in the front.
What Should You Consider Before Buying an Oven?
Capacity
Countertop ovens for baking cakes generally have standard dimensions, which are 60 cm wide for freestanding ovens, slightly less for those that can be installed inside cabinets. There are also oversized ovens, which can even exceed 90cm, or some that are particularly small, that have a width of around 45cm or even larger. However, it is always good to also consider the average capacity of the appliance: standard models have capacities greater than 50 liters, 65 if they are particularly large devices. Conversely, 35-liter ovens are generally considered extremely small ovens for baking cakes. The depth does not exceed 55cm but it is never less than 45cm, while as regards the height, the solutions can be different ranging from a minimum of 40cm to a maximum of 60cm in standard and commonly used appliances.
Modes
For roasting, cooking, or simply warming up, or being able to cook at low temperature or with steam cooking, you will need different modes. The ideal oven is the one that allows you to comfortably cook all the dishes you want, with different cooking programs designed for any recipe. Some of the ovens on the market today offer all these cooking modes and others, particularly innovative ones. Discover your favorites before you purchase your next oven.
Temperature settings
Something else that deserves your attention, before buying an oven, concerns the temperatures that the product can reach. The possibility of setting a wide range of temperatures allows you to choose the ideal one for each food. A very high temperature is essential in cooking certain dishes. Finally, it is also essential that cooking in the oven is always homogeneous and that the set temperature is maintained. Trivial perhaps, but not taken for granted!
Timer
This is another fundamental function. Also in this case it will be possible to find models with preset periods (from 5 minutes upwards) and models that instead allow manual selection with much shorter intervals (about 1 minute).
Brand
The best brands make the best ovens for baking cakes at home with excellent quality materials, making extensive use of enameled paints, stainless steel, and glass. The latter is of great importance since it represents our window on the dishes inserted inside the oven, therefore it must allow us to see perfectly inside it, but it must also be solid enough to withstand high temperatures. So, what are the best ovens for baking cakes? The most famous brands are Bosch, Candy, Electrolux, Franke, Ariston, Indesit, Siemens, and Whirpool.
A Few Last Words…
Ovens are our best allies in the kitchen, an absolutely indispensable and nowadays more and more innovative appliance, whose goal is to make our way of cooking simple and effective.
If you are planning to buy a new oven, you are probably looking for advice and useful information to choose the best model on the market. Among the main features that should be evaluated, first are the size and the design but there are other important aspects to know and that are sometimes not adequately taken into consideration, such as type of oven, functions, and the other aspects we considered in the article. Keep reading articles on mykitchenadvisor.com to find out more about the best baking ovens.
