Food burning prevention - Oven

Issue

• Food burning prevention - oven
• Baking/cooking results are unsatisfactory
• Uneven cooking results in oven

Applies to

• All ovens

Resolution

It can be frustrating when food you have prepared burns in the oven. If you have a new oven - newer ovens are more precise with the technology that is available, so it may be that certain recipe temperatures will need to be adjusted. This is especially the case where a fan oven is being used rather than a conventional 'top and bottom' heat oven.

Where a fan oven is being used, the following guidelines are useful to follow and are available within your appliance manual -

• Your oven may bake or roast differently to the oven you had before. The tables within your manual show recommended settings for temperature, cooking time and shelf position for specific types of the food. If you cannot find the settings for a special recipe, look for the similar one.
• On the inner side of the door you can find-
  • the numbers of the shelf positions
  • information about the heating functions, recommended shelf positions and temperatures for dishes.
• Use the lower temperature the first time -
  • You can extend baking times by 10 – 15 minutes if you bake cakes on more than one shelf position
  • Cakes and pastries at different heights do not always brown equally. There is no need to change the temperature setting if an unequal browning occurs. The differences equalise during baking
  • Trays in the oven can twist during baking. When the trays become cold again, the distortions disappear.
• Cookware
  • Dark cookware absorbs more heat than white / light cookware and this can affect the cooking time - where using dark cookware, reduce the time for the cooking or use light cookware.

Tips on Roasting

• Use heat-resistant ovenware
• Roast lean meat covered
• Roast large meat joints directly in the tray or on the wire shelf placed above the tray
• Place some water in the tray to prevent dripping fat from burning
• Turn the roast after 1/2 - 2/3 of the cooking time
• Roast meat and fish in large pieces (1 kg or more)
• Baste meat joints with their own juice several times during roasting
• Use the first shelf position for roasting.

Cooking duration

• When the cooking duration is longer than 30 minutes, reduce the oven temperature to minimum 3 - 10 minutes before the end of cooking. The residual heat inside the oven will continue to cook. Use the residual heat to warm up other dishes.