Category Archives: Ovens

Full Steam Ahead

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Steam Oven [steem uhv-uhn] noun 

Ovens that use hot steam rather than hot air to cook food. 

Steam Ovens

Around for 25 years, steam ovens are becoming a must-have for today’s kitchen. You might also know them as combi steam ovens, where they can do many tasks a regular oven does, but with the performance of some steam. Let’s dive into some of their key features. 

Photo: Wolf

Cooking with Your Steam Oven 

First, steam ovens are forgiving when cooking food to a specific temperature. You won’t be drying out any chicken in these! Steam ovens don’t mean vegetables, fish and chicken only. Similar to a regular convection oven, it will brown your food to perfection.  

Photo: Miele

Cooking Meat 

Because this oven infuses food with moisture, you can count on it not drying up. This also helps with keeping all those yummy nutrients in the food and maintaining its color. You might notice that food also takes less time to cook because water conducts heat quicker than air.  

Photo: Miele

Baking 

If you’re an avid baker, you’re in luck because you can cook and bake with your steam oven. In fact, you can do both at the same time, without worry about odor transfer.  

Photo: Sharp

Saying Yes to Leftovers 

Not everyone is keen on having leftovers, but your mind might change after reheating last night’s dinner in this appliance. Your family won’t even know it’s leftovers with the steam oven’s reheat mode. 

Photo: Warners’ Stellian Edina Showroom

Cleaning Up 

You see all of that moisture? Not only does that help cook to perfection, it makes cleaning up a breeze! Gone are the days of crusted on cheese from pizza that went rogue. The moisture from the oven makes cleaning your oven fun again.  

Recipe: Wolf

Interested in more kitchen ideas? Read more on our blog, or visit our Instagram for Angela Warners steam oven tips!

Don’t Put Foil In the Oven

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Maybe your grandma used to use tinfoil to line her oven floor to aid cleanup.

But times have changed; tinfoil is no longer made of tin. The stuff you use to shield your ham is actually aluminum foil, which has a lower heat tolerance.

The high temperatures of your oven floor can actually cause the foil to melt right onto that oven surface.

And you can’t clean it off.

aluminum foil in ovenWe’ve had Warners’ Stellian  customers spend hundreds of dollars replacing the oven floor on relatively new ranges because of this well-intentioned mistake.

Instead, aluminum foil-makers suggest you line the oven rack you’re using with aluminum foil rather than lining the oven itself.

Simplify Cooking with Appliances that Multitask

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Buy based on how you cook most days.

When buying appliances, people often focus on two days of the year: Thanksgiving and Christmas.

What matters at that moment to you is finding a range whose oven accommodates a massive turkey.

Or, thinking about overflow casseroles and Christmas cookies, you opt for double ovens.

But what about the other 363 days of the year? If you’re not a serious baker, that second oven sits cold. And warming up that range with the huge oven capacity for a couple of baked potatoes wastes time and energy.

Appliances that Multitask

Instead, a trend we’re seeing is assembling a team of appliances that can work alone during normal operations but also can multitask for occasional holidays and parties.

So instead of a giant range, combine a double oven range and convection microwave.

The smaller upper oven of the range can be used for one-dish meals. Come Christmas, you can bake a dessert up top while a roasts monopolizes the lower oven. The convection microwave can bake a casserole.
A convection microwave also works overtime when paired with a single oven, perfect for those who won’t make enough use of a double oven.

Better yet, make that second oven a speed oven for the ultimate versatility.


This GE Advantium cooks up to 4 times faster than your grandmother’s oven – covering all 4 bases: warming/proofing, true convection, sensor microwave (that can rotate a 9×13 casserole on its turntable!) and of course, speed cooking.

Convection oven baking tips

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.christmas snowflake food

It's cookie season. Do you need to brush up on your convection baking knowledge?

 

Are you taking full advantage of your convection oven (if you don’t know what that is, read What is convection?)?

You probably already know to decrease your oven temperature 25 degrees and decrease the bake time about 25 percent for convection oven vs. conventional oven.

But if you already know how to use convection cooking — and you probably do if you partake in holiday baking and cookie exchanges — I bet you’ll still learn something from Dacor’s convection oven baking tips (PDF).

Also, if if your convection oven cooking times seem to be longer now than when you first bought your convection oven, perhaps you need to clean your convection filter.

In a convection oven, the fan draws air through the filter. So especially if you do a lot of roasting,  grease particles will stick to the filter and could obstruct the airflow. Check your use and care manual for instructions on how to clean your filter. Some, like Dacor convection oven filter, are dishwasher safe.

How To Check Oven Temperature

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turkey in oven

Before you trust your oven to your family’s turkey and pie this Thanksgiving, make sure the oven heats to the correct temperature.

Some manufacturers say that using an oven thermometer (available at most hardware stores) isn’t accurate because once the door opens, the temperature changes. However, it’s a better measure than trying to decipher how far off your oven is by experimenting on baked goods or other methods.

First, check your thermometer’s accuracy by sticking it in boiling water for a minute. Boiling temperature is 212 degrees F, so if that’s not what your thermometer reads, note the difference.

Next, put your thermometer in the oven and select 350 degrees. Check the thermometer after about 20 minutes. If it doesn’t read 350 degrees (after factoring any difference you found in step one), you know whether your oven temperature runs high or low and how many degrees.

If you were smart enough – or organized enough – to save your Use & Care manual, your manufacturer might include instructions on how to calibrate your oven so that the temperature settings can be adjusted for accuracy. Otherwise, just make a mental note and select a 355 degrees (for instance) next time a recipe calls for 350.

Many ovens now come with built-in temperature probes, which offer another great way to ensure your meat cooks perfectly.

And the best way to ensure consistent temperature in your oven is to minimize opening the door by using your oven light. Having the oven door open for just seconds can decrease the temperature by 25 degrees!