What should I know about different oven settings?

March 19, 2014 9:33 AM

My oven has the following settings:"Circotherm" (IE, convection); top/bottom heat; "Circotherm intensive" (which seems to be convection + bottom heat); "Circo-roasting" (convection + grill); full-surface grill; center-area grill; bottom heating; low-temperature cooking; and defrost. I know that convection cooks things faster, so I need to reduce either heat or cooking time when adapting recipes. What else should I know to take full advantage of all these different modes?

(The manual has a small amount of advice on when to use each setting, but it's not tremendously helpful, and in any case, there's a lot of party-line stuff about "Your new oven will produce succulent and tender meat!" I'd love to hear any real-world experience people have had in the various methods of cooking.)

posted by yankeefog to Food & Drink (3 answers total)

Best answer: Just as a data point, I have a propane convection oven. Mine doesn't cook faster, just more evenly. It's digital and automatically reduces the temperature I enter by 25 degrees. I was having to cook things longer than the expected time. Now I enter recipe temperature+25 degrees and that seems to work. If you have an oven thermometer, I'd suggest using it to see how to adjust the temperature in your particular oven.
posted by Beti at 10:01 AM on March 19, 2014 [2 favorites]

My experience was exactly the same as Beti's. Annoying appliance is too smart for its own good, has to be corrected.
posted by alms at 10:15 AM on March 19, 2014 [1 favorite]

Response by poster: Thanks, Beti and alms-- good idea. I'll check for that.
posted by yankeefog at 3:49 AM on March 20, 2014