Convection ovens differ from conventional ovens only in their method of heat circulation. Because convection ovens heat food more evenly and efficiently than other ovens, they often yield much more evenly cooked food. If you purchase a conventional oven, you will need to learn a technique for converting the conventional oven cooking times listed on food packaging and in recipes to the shorter cooking time the same food will require in a convection oven. Does this Spark an idea?
Convection Ovens
Whereas traditional gas and electric ovens use two heating elements, one on the top and one on the bottom, to heat the oven cavity to a specific temperature, convection ovens add a third heating element attached to a fan at the back of the oven cavity. The fan pulls in air from the oven cavity, passes it through the heating element to heat, and distributes the now-heated air back into the oven cavity. This helps keep a more consistent internal temperature in the oven cavity than is possible with conventional ovens. It also means that foods cook more quickly due to the more efficient distribution of heated air over the entire surface area of the food being cooked.
Cooking Times
In general, using a convection oven will mean a 25 percent reduction in cooking times. Directing heated air onto food rather than radiating heat from a heating element toward the food means that the chemical reactions that make good baked food good -- the release of steam inside a pie crust that makes it flaky and tender, for example -- happen more quickly than in a traditional dual heating element non-convection oven. These sped-up chemical reactions mean that food cooked in a convection oven according to directions that are optimized for a non-convection oven will quickly and easily go from pleasantly cooked to over-cooked.
Calculating Specific Times
The 25 percent benchmark is a good general guideline, but switching over to a convection oven will mean that you will need to find a formula for converting individual foods to convection oven cooking time. Websites like the convection oven calculator (see Resources) are useful for this conversion. A simpler method is to reduce the oven temperature recommended for a specific food by 25 degrees Fahrenheit (15 degrees Celsius) and keep a close eye on the food to prevent over-cooking.
Other Considerations
If you put a premium on the quality of your home-cooked food, switching to a convection oven for home use may be the right choice for you. But it is important to understand all that this switch-over entails in addition to lower cooking temperatures and shorter cooking times. Convection ovens are much more expensive than traditional gas or electric ovens and typically cost more in terms of long-term energy and repair fees. Due to their prevalence in professional kitchens, there are also fewer size and design options available to those shopping for a convection oven to use in the home.
Tags: convection oven, oven cavity, heating element, oven will, cooking times, chemical reactions