I now have an electric oven, and it seems to cook everything very fast. Is it just my oven or am I suppose to change the temp. The reason I ask now is because I have to make a turkey, and I’m not sure if I should cook it like I would do in a gas oven. HELP
If it’s a fan-assisted electric oven (and most of them are nowadays) then you should reduce the cooking time by about ten minutes in every hour and reduce the temperature by about ten degrees (centigrade) from whatever the recipe says (assuming the recipe is for a conventional non-fan-assisted oven)
Get an oven thermometer. It just hangs on the rack.
You should be able to find one at the grocery store (will be crazy tonight) or even at K-Mart or Target or Wal-Mart.
Maybe five bucks or so.
The you can check the exact temp of your oven.
As for gas vs. electric, I don’t know. I’ve always had gas, so I don’t really know how the two compare. Just use the oven thermometer to check the oven temp, and a meat thermometer to check the turkey.
WAG…if it seems to cook faster than gas, maybe reduce the temp 25 degrees or so to slow it down?
Someone more knowledgable than me will come along and explain why that is precisely the wrong thing to do…
Electric ovens usually keep a more consistant temperature and have fewer “hot spots” than a gas oven of the same quality.
Honest opinion is that if you new oven (electric or gas) cooks things “faster” than any of your previous ovens, then the oven is probably running hotter than what you have it set at. Do what Kinsey says, get a second opinion from an oven thermometer.
For future reference, you also might get an actual oven thermometer, this will give you a more acturate detail on how hot your oven is actually running.
Electric does cook faster, and I’m going to be trying my first turkey tomorrow in an electric oven. I’m going 500degrees for aboug 20 or 25 minutes, then dropping to 325 to 350 for the remainder. Normally I would do 550 for 30 minutes then 2350 for the remainder.
Due to the entirely different construction of electric and gas ovens, there are also vastly different performance issues as well.
Gas ovens will usually have a baffle between the heat generating area (underneath, in the broiler region) and the baking area. This serves to equalize the radiated heat. To you engineers this is known as eliminating temperature nonuniformity. Some gas broilers will have an unshielded element above the baking region. With electric ovens it is nearly the rule that all of the heating elements are within the cavity of the baking (oven) domain.
For this reason, you must adjust your cooking times in order to account for direct exposure to the heat source. Without the venting and exhaust facilities of a gas oven, there is a greater degree of radiant transfer versus convective exchange of heat. This is the issue and it must be taken into account for.
In other words, electric ovens have their elements in nearly direct contact with the food while gas ovens rely almost entirely upon radiant heating. Eletrics ovens heat faster and more intensely while gas ovens heat quite uniformly and more gradually.
I have been noticing that the oven cooked foods have been completely different. I was quite glad that I really paid close attention to my first oven cooked dish. I would have ruined my best salmon dish if I didn’t. The heat it a bit too direct and intense for my taste. On the other hand, I love the electric range. Very even cooking, but the varience in temp settings is a bit much for me. The bird will be interesting tomorrow. All that direct intense heat should be great for getting that initial color on the bird.