Ovens, domestic

[Scotmum]

I used to bake scones, sponge cakes and meringues. I started married life (1974) with a Belling Fan Four – Absolutely brilliant for bring-and-buys and coffee mornings as you could do 48 fairy cakes in one go – all shelves being at the same temperature.

Since then I’ve had no luck in finding a replacement. Present kitchen has built in Whirlpool Fan oven with the hottest part at the bottom.
I’ve had to give up on all my old family recipes for the past 10 years.

Biting the bullet and considering replacing Whirlpool with a Siemens.

Any comments?

Scotmum 🙂

[kwatt]

Re: Ovens, domestic

I’ve found that this tends to be a symptom of “cheaper” ovens and if all you do is cook the odd casserole, heat a pizza or reheat a meal in the oven then they suffice, mostly. However if you actually cook or bake with an oven then many ovens aren’t so great.

In general people buy ovens (and most other appliances) with absolutely no research on their performance all that seems of interest is the price and how it looks, sometimes the energy rating and you can see that in th ecurrent poll that we are running. But people also expect that an appliance that cost less than the previous one will perform the same or better, as with most mechanical devices this is not generally the case.

I have looked at the Siemens and Neff ovens and they strike me as being pretty good, with some having a few very neat features on them. I’ve not used any of the latest generation but the older ones I have used have been very good with very few complaints from customers about them.

The oven that has most impressed me of late, although you’d need a special housing for it and a few quid to buy one, is the Fisher a Paykell ovens, very chunky and well built with nice solid doors on them. I can’t comment on their performance though as I’ve not tried one as yet.

Meile is also well worth considering.

Look for an oven that is true multi-function if you want to bake with it, so that you have the option of fan, static and also upper and lower heat with fan as that allows for great flexability in cooking methods.

Im my experience the better the quality of steel and glass, the more insulation (or better insulation used) the better the oven retains heat and therefore the more stable and even the temperature is. So the cheap flimsy things just don’t cut it, it’s the old story to a large extent, you gets what you pays for.

Hope that helps.

K.

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