12
Using the fan oven
The Fan Oven
The air inside the oven is heated by the element
around the fan situated behind the back panel. The
fan draws air from the oven, the element heats the
air which is circulated into the oven via the top,
base and sides of the back panel. The advantages
of cooking with this function are:
Faster Preheating
Because the fan oven quickly reaches temperature,
it is not usually necessary to preheat the oven
although you may find that you need to allow an
extra 5-7 minutes on cooking times. For recipes
which require higher temperatures, best results are
achieved if the oven is preheated first, e.g. bread,
pastries, scones, souffles, etc.
Lower Temperatures
Fan oven cooking generally requires lower
temperatures than conventional cooking.
Follow the temperatures recommended in the
charts or remember to reduce temperatures by
about 20-25
°
C for your own recipes which use
conventional cooking.
Even Heating for Baking
The fan oven has uniform heating on all runner
positions. This means that batches of the same
food can be cooked in the oven at the same time.
However, the top shelf may brown slightly
quicker that the lower one.
This is quite usual. There is no mixing of flavours
between dishes (see Fig. 7).
The oven is supplied with two anti-tip shelves.
IMPORTANT: The anti-tip oven shelves must
be positoned as shown in Fig. 6.
HINTS AND TIPS
Runner positions are not critical, but make sure
the shelves are evenly spread.
When cooking more than one dish in the fan oven,
place dishes centrally on the shelves rather than
several dishes on one shelf.
When the oven is full, you may need to allow
slightly longer cooking time.
A shelf may be placed on the floor of the oven.
Place dishes on a shelf in this position rather than
on the oven base, to allow air circulation around
the food.
When the oven is full of the same food, e.g. equal
trays of small cakes or equal size victoria
sandwich cakes, then they will be cooked in the
same time and removed from the oven together.
When different sizes of trays or types of food, e.g.
biscuits and cakes are cooked, they will not
necessarily be ready together.
The fan oven can be used to heat foods through
without thawing first, e.g. fruit tarts, mince pies,
sausage rolls, and other small pastry items. Use a
temperature of 190-200
°
C and allow 20-40
minutes (depending on the quantity of food in the
oven).
The use of too high temperatures can cause
uneven browning. Check with the
recommendations for oven temperatures given in
the cooking charts, but be prepared to adjust the
temperature by 10
°
C if necessary. Remember to
reduce temperatures by about 20-25
°
C for your
own conventional recipes.
Fig. 6
Fig. 7
