Range cookers, unlike conventional ovens, may be thought of as heat-storage devices. The oven is practically always turned on and ready to use. This has a number of benefits since you will not be cooking with direct heat, but rather with radiant heat, which may change the way you cook certain products.
While this is fantastic for savoury items like a lovely Sunday roast, it might be challenging when you first begin baking with your range cooker. When your baked items need constant heat, the heat produced by the heating element might fluctuate substantially. In this piece, we’ll go over a few tips for using your range cooker the next time you bake.
Getting the best results: If you’re fortunate enough to have a range cooker, it might be difficult to comprehend the fundamentals of baking with such a complex device. Baking in a range cooker is simple enough if you follow the basic principles of convection cooking.
Finding the ideal position to bake your cake (depending on the variety) is critical in any oven. What you’re attempting to achieve will affect how you bake, from cakes to pies. Denser things will always need longer cooking at a lower temperature, as a general rule. Cheesecake, for example, will cook best at a much lower temperature, whilst smaller denser products, like as scones, would benefit from the hottest area of the oven, which is at the top.
If your range cooker has a baking oven, you’re in luck if you want to cook something bigger but less thick, such as a sponge cake, since baking ovens offer a steady heat to allow the bake time to rise. Knowing which compartments and how hot they become is an important step in refining your range cooker outcomes.
Moving your bake around: While there are “hotspots” in each oven, a range cooker gives you a wider temperature range to deal with. The roasting oven is usually the hottest, with the baking and simmering ovens having a lower temperature.
Because of this temperature variance, you shouldn’t be hesitant to move your plates about if necessary to maintain or lessen the heat. For example, if you require a hotter oven to start a bake, you may want to start with the roasting oven and then end with the simmering oven to keep a constant temperature. This is fantastic for crumbles and fruit pies that need the proper glaze.
Patience and practise: Baking using a range cooker is a skill that will take time to master. In this situation, practise makes perfect, so giving it a go and experimenting with various ovens to understand the temperature impact will help you to learn how to bake with your new range cooker to its full potential. Whether you have Dual Fuel Range Cookers or another sort of fuel, you’ll polish your technique over time and before you know it, you’ll be cooking like a pro.