The holidays have a funny way of turning everyone into professional home chefs. With that in mind, a convection oven and steam oven from Bekins can really improve your hosting skills.
We use the Miele convection oven as a great example of how it works. Traditional oven baking has a heat source in the bottom. If you have a large pan, the heat will move around the pan so the center of your food will get cooked last. Simply put, a convection oven places the heating element in the back and uses a fan to spread the heat evenly. Convection also provides better results when you have food cooking on multiple shelves.
A steam oven obviously uses steam to cook your food. Steam cooking keeps food moist and makes it very difficult to overcook your food. Vegetables and fish cook very well in a steam oven. However, you don't always have to choose steam or convection. Miele offers a combination oven that lets you use either method, or both at the same time. The combination oven works well with beef tenderloins and artisan bread.
Finally, we recommend using a probe when cooking meat. Sometimes the cord can make people nervous, so Miele uses a wireless roast probe. Stick the probe into your food, then place your food into the oven. The wireless probe makes precision cooking both easy and safe.
Did you bake and eat a cake at your job today? Our repair technicians Lou and Chad did. They certainly had fun with it too. It was a welcome break from their routine of moving and fixing appliances and it does actually help with oven repair.
Why did they bake a cake? It was a part of a yellow cake test we can do for our customers. You can give us a call but it would be less expensive to do it yourself. We recommend you try the cake test if you think your new oven does not cook properly.
Buy a box of cake mix at your local grocery store.
Preheat your oven for 30 minutes to let the entire cavity get to the correct temperature.
Bake the cake in your new oven, following the instructions on the box, especially the time and temperature.
Taste the cake. If it tastes good, and cooked exactly how the box said it would, then your new oven is working just fine.
WHAT DOES THIS HAVE TO DO WITH OVEN REPAIR?
Good question! It stems from a common problem. You get a new oven or range. Then you bake your favorite recipe, only to have it overcook!
That's certainly no fun and we understand the frustration. Want to know why it happens?
The temperature your oven produces changes over time. Your oven loses roughly one degree of heat per year. Let's say you have been using your oven for 20 years. If you set it to 350 degrees, it may only reach 330 degrees, maybe even less.
Which means it takes longer to cook your food.
Why haven't you noticed? You have probably been slowly adjusting your cooking over the years to accommodate the changes.
A box of yellow cake mix has very few variables in the recipe. The only variable is the egg, which is why the box will usually tell you to cook it within a window of time. One box says 23 to 28 minutes.
On the other hand, there are a lot of variables when cooking other foods like meat.
What type of meat is it?
How thick is the meat?
Did you let the meat thaw properly?
So yellow cake provides a very standard test for your oven.
If you bought a new oven recently, then understand that your favorite recipe may cook faster now.
If you have an older oven, the box cake test can help you understand how it cooks. Follow the directions, then see how much longer it takes to bake the cake correctly. You can see just how much performance you are losing from your older oven, then adjust accordingly.
Did you try the yellow cake test? How did it go? Let us know on our Bekins Facebook, Twitter, or Instagram page!