If an oven only has fan forced mode do i still need to set it to the fan forced temperature in recipes? Ie 160 instead of 180.

eatthecake@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 51 points –

Landlord put in a new oven and not sure how it works.

23

Yes. It cooks faster with the fan. Btw, it's also referred to as a "convection" oven as opposed to a "conventional" oven. Air fryers are just small convection ovens.

Actually, air fryers suck in on top of the tray and it comes back from below while a convection oven just creates some turbulences in there. The difference is that the air fryer removes all the steam that comes off the food, reducing time to crisp up significantly.

Where does the steam go? I never see steam coming out of my air fryer, and there isn't a water tray.

It’s blown out the slits (mine has it at the back) Since the air is so hot and it is so little water you can’t see the steam directly but a mirror will fog when put there

That's annoying. If you can't turn the fan off, then I think you need to look for convection oven recipes specifically. But I think they're not too hard to find.

Read the manual. Some ovens compensate and lower the actual temp from the nominal temp when used in convection mode.

Yikes wtf? That's a terrible idea, recipes for fan forced already compensate the temperature so everyone will be getting it wrong. That's crazy.

I decided to split the difference and bake my cake at 170, it took half an hour longer than it should to cook and got dried out (i was poking it with a stick every 5 minutes for the last half hour), does that mean 170 in the dial is actually 150?

I don't have the manual unfortunately.

Tbh, almost all oven thermostats are not accurate for the actual temperature of the oven. Like, they probably are measuring 170 accuretly, but the thermostat is in the very back top corner and the temperature in the middle shelf is 15 degrees off.

People who are keen on baking, roasting meat etc where temperatures are important often recommend getting an oven thermometer so you can see the real temperature.

Convection ovens will always dry out cakes.

I have never had a properly functioning oven before and now my brand new one is still wrong. :(

What is the model number? So I know what not to get.

If it’s like mine then it’s a low speed fan on “bake” mode which has little impact on cakes. If you have a convection option, don’t use it when baking.

The only options are fan forced, grill with fan and grill without fan. I might try the grill option and put some foil on a rack above the cake to stop the top from burning. I've had to do this for many years as my last two ovens only had functioning grills.

I’d see if you can find the manual online… if not, well, trial and error.

Or test with a thermometer.

Honestly, give it a try both ways and see what works better. No two ovens are gonna work exactly the same. I'd start with the lower temp first, and if it's not cooked enough just give it a bit more time and increase the temp next time.

Pretty much. I keep a sheet of aluminum ready to put on top in case the outside is getting too crisp while the inside still needs more time.

You're probably gonna have to experiment a bit. For baking and more delicate things probably the listed fan temp, but for things like roasted potatoes it doesn't matter as much.

For most recipes (esp convenience food), you just drop the temperature about 20°C and keep the time the same. But in the end, you will have to experiment a bit since every oven is a little bit different.