Baking Electric Fan Oven
I have just moved to a kitchen with a electric fan oven and I have always been use to using a gas oven.
I have always done a lot of cake baking and have put a sheet of grease proof paper on top of the cake tin/liner to stop the cake from burning or cooking to much. With the Fan oven this blows off has anyone any suggestions tostop this happening.
Best Answer
Some convection ovens have the ability to turn off the fan -- if yours has one, that would be recommended.
One of the big issues is that the cooking time changes based on the surface area of the item being cooked -- so if you have a thin cake, such as a jelly roll (baked thin, then rolled up), your cooking time will be dramatically reduced ... but it doesn't help with large cakes -- you'll just end up with the top browing faster than the middle sets.
In general, the recommendation for convection ovens is to lower the temperature by about 25F / 15C (some newer ones with digital controls will do this automatically), but some people report problems with cakes being overly dense; I've heard different theories (eg, bernoulli effect lowering the pressure in the oven, causing the air bubbles to come out of the batter). Adding a tight covering of aluminium foil might help this, but it will cause other issues (eg, steaming the top).
Another recommendation I've seen for baking in a convection oven is to make sure that your oven has had sufficient time to pre-heat, then when putting in your baked goods, turn the oven off, and leave if off for 3-5 minutes before turning it back on. (this is typically to solve problems with baked goods appearing lopsided, as the fan's blowing so hard it's moving the batter around significantly).
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Quick Answer about "Baking Electric Fan Oven"
When using ovens with both fan-forced and conventional settings, it is best to use conventional when you are baking long and slow (like for cakes) and fan-forced for fast cooking at high temperatures. If using a fan-forced oven, as a general rule, drop the temperature by 20°C to imitate conventional.Should the fan be on when baking?
Fan baking is not ideal for all recipes. Delicate recipes, such as cakes and custards, should avoid fan baking entirely. Using this method, more delicate and soft recipes can end up getting dried out or burned entirely.Is fan bake the same as bake?
The difference between a conventional or static setting and a fan-forced setting is: a conventional setting uses the heating elements in the top and base of your oven with no fan while a fan-forced setting uses the fan at the back of your oven plus the heating element around it.What does bake at 180 fan mean?
180 fan is 180 degrees Centigrade with the fan on. The general advice when converting from a fan to a non fan oven is increase temperature 15-20 degrees, so the range you are looking for is between 383 and 392 degrees Fahrenheit.Can you bake a cake on fan bake?
Usually you need to reduce the oven temperature by 20c (about 50F) as the constant heat and force of the fan causes cakes to bake more quickly.102: FAN or NO FAN for Baking Bread? - Bake with Jack
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Answer 2
Use aluminium foil instead. When you wrap the edges a bit around the cake pan, it doesn't fly off. It prevents burning just like the paper.
Answer 3
I'd just try baking a cake without the paper. As GdD commented, it sounds like your old gas oven just wasn't very good or accurate and is probably the reason you needed to use the paper in the first place, you shouldn't need to physically shield the top of a cake to keep it from burning. What temperature are you baking at?
It sounds like your new oven is a convection oven. If used in convection mode, you should be able to use a baking temperature about 25°F lower than the recipe calls for, that would also help prevent burning. Your oven may or may not have a convection-only mode, which uses a hidden heating element behind the fan to heat the air as it circulates, but if it does, use that.
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