March 10, 2010 - 1:39pm
Convection Feature on Oven: To use or not to use, that is the question :) Or when to use ?
I have a home oven and it has convection settings. Not many formulas, which I have seen, call for using convection or have different directions for convection vs regular bake.
When is it appropriate or better (if so) to use the convection bake option rather than the regular bake setting ?
Does anyone use one or the other setting exclusively because of your experience with trying both ?
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My mini oven can use only convection, and even with cakes (both leavened and ordinary) that are generally considered to be convection-unfriendly everything comes out perfect.
I guess that the self-regulation and the direction of heat (from top/bottom or from rear as in my case) have much more influence.
I use a convection oven all the time. I find I need to either reduce the temp or the baking time a little, but apart from that it bakes fantastic bread.
What do the directions for your oven say about using convection?
I have only used the convection bake setting on my home oven and am quite happy with it. The only thing I need to remember is to put the oven temperature setting ~50 F lower than the temperature I want the oven to be. When I do that then the oven thermometer gives me consistently correct readings.
aloha,
Dave Hurd, Hilo, Hawaii
I don't use convection during the steam phase, but after the steam is removed I will occasionally lower the temperature and turn on the fan for a bit to dry out the oven while the loaves finish baking to crisp the crust. Convection browns the crust a lot faster so if it's browning too quickly, I'll turn the fan off. I only do this if I feel like hovering over the bake.