April 22, 2012 - 6:58am
direct heat vs. hot air
I was just wondering if there's any obvious reason for using direct heat over hot air (or vice versa) in home baking in a standard kitchen oven. Mine has these two options and I always use hot air (with no real reason for doing so). Would it in any way be advantageous to start using direct heat when I bake my bread?
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"Hot air" is thought to set the bread's crust before the bread has reached it's maximum expansion in volume.
The "direct heat" heat method is thought to be better in terms of allowing the bread to expand to it's maximum, before the crust sets.
Many combine the two methods, in that the first part of the bake is done with the normal direct heat, then turning on convection(hot air) later in the bake because of the better(more even) browning.