I had to get a new range, since the oven on the old one died and it would cost $400+ to fix.
The new one has a convection oven. I can use it as a conventional oven or as convection. I’ve only used it as a conventional oven so far.
What types of foods would benefit from a convection oven? What should I know before trying it out?
I don’t have a full-size convection oven, but with my little convection toaster oven I find that the convection works best if the item can be placed directly on the rack, so the air can circulate directly around the food and not the container. Reduces the cooking time about 20-25% usually.
Convection oven crispy chicken wings is something I could not duplicate in a conventional oven. The conventional oven wings always come out as roasted, while the convection wings come out closer to deep fried. IIRC the temperature is 400F for the wings, the time will vary with wing size. Having a suspended basket ‘rack’ helps.
Basically and foodstuffs you would have to turn over in a regular oven isn’t necessary in a convection oven.
So chops, roasts, etc…
If you bake your own breads, you will love your convection feature! It is the shiznit for oven spring in your loaves. My Ciabatta bread was hit-and-miss until I had convection. Now it comes out perfect every time. Just remember to reduce your baking temperature by about 25F.
Have fun!
My oven has a convection feature. I haven’t had the guts to play around with baked goods, because those can be fussy, and it would be sad to throw away a whole cake or something. But I use it all the time for roasting meat, and it’s great.
I am old-fashioned, and I heat the oven to “high”, put the roast in for a bit, then turn the temp down. So, for instance, right now I am roasting a chicken. I put it in at 425F with convection, on one side. After 15 minutes, I will flip it to the other side, so both sides get nicely browned. Then I will flip it to its back, and turn the heat down. Tonight I have plenty of time, so I’ll probably turn it down to 300F, or maybe even 250F, leave the fan on, and cook it until it’s done. Then I’ll let it rest while I cook some quinoa and chard.
For a larger roast I might leave it on high for longer, and I probably wouldn’t bother to flip it, not because that wouldn’t benefit the exterior, surface, but because it’s a nuisance to turn a large roast over in the oven. It’s easy to shove a fork into the cavity of the chicken and flip it around.
It’s slightly better to start at an even higher temp, but then I get more smoke in the kitchen. This is a compromise.
My roasts have cooked much faster and more evenly since getting the convection oven. They also don’t dry out as much, probably because the cooking time is shorter.
What you should know is that a lot of foods will cook faster with the convection fan on, and you should keep an eye on your cook to check for doneness until you get the hang of using your new oven.
I wouldn’t have bought a convection oven if the oven with the other features I liked hadn’t happened to be convection. But I love it. I’m a convert.
(And I’m thinking I should look for baking recipes written for convection cooking, and just re-learn some of the basics that way.)
Roasting meats and vegetables are great with convection. You’ll likely notice a taste difference with and without. Does your oven also have a temperature probe? If so, use it when you roast meats to know when to pull them out.
We don’t bake a ton of stuff, but we typically use the convection with baking as well. Everything seems to come out great. Pies seem to cook a little more evenly with convection.
Our oven actually internally tweaks the temperature lower when convection is used so that the time ends up being about the same. So if we set the oven to 350, it may just be 325 or something. I haven’t noticed any issues with that feature, but it would be something to be aware of if you absolutely needed the oven to be at a certain temperature.
Since convection ovens have a fan, some models can also be used to dehydrate food.
Talking to my Australian brother-in-law, he wonders why all our ovens aren’t convection. I tell him for the same reason we don’t adopt metric measurements. We learn something one way and we’ll never change, even if for the better. And convection is better. So is metric, but that’s another hill to die on.
Baking cakes/cookies? No more rotating for even heat, possibly fewer batches because one can use the whole oven. Better, and more even, browning on roasts, even at lower temperatures. Great browning when roasting vegetables. I didn’t find the learning curve to be long or daunting, but I’m always adapting my cooking techniques to obtain the best results.
Pastry is my main reason for using convection, but I’m picking up tips here!
I can’t imagine why you wouldn’t use the convection setting if you have that option. Cooking is even, faster, with better results like even colour, crispy outsides and moist insides. Pretty much any food you would cook in a regular oven can be cooked in a convection type. Just be careful with delicate foods, or recipes that need to rise like souffles or puff pastries because the wind from the fan will tend to make the tops uneven or not rise properly. You can turn off the fan or use a low setting if it has one. Also, be careful with cooking times because convection is faster with all that hot air blowing around. Play around with lowering the temperature or setting a shorter cooking time.
Depends on the oven. Some automatically make the conversion when in convection mode. My manual says under “Convection Bake” that “Your oven is equipped with Auto Recipe Conversion, so it is not necessary to convert the temperature when using this mode.” So everyone should check their manual to see if their model similarly adjust temp.
That’s a really good point. When I purchased my commercial grade stove with convection 15 years ago, Auto Recipe Conversion was not a thing.
Mine has “convection bake” which automatically lowers the temperature to “match” the non-convection recipe and “convection roast” which sets the temp to what you ask for, but turns on the fan. I’ve only used “convection roast” because I don’t really trust it. 
But you know what, I want to bake a cinnamon star soon, I’ll turn on the convection feature and see how it does.
(any advice, including a better recipe for the star, would be welcome. The instructions I have for forming the star are good, but the recipe they are attached to is mediocre.)
Yeah, this shows you how variable ovens are. Mine also has a “convection roast” setting, but the manual also states “It is not necessary to convert temperature.” It looks like the difference is that convection bake is intended for “baking on multiple racks at the same time,” and convection roast is intended for “roasting whole cuts of meat on a single rack.” It appears which heating elements in the oven are on varies between the two modes.
How odd. When I switch my oven from regular (bake, roast or broil) to convection, the temp shows 40-50 degrees less. So the oven and fan kicks in to bring up the temp. I don’t open the oven to change settings so it’s not a question of the door being opened before switching modes. Mostly we use convection to roast vegetables and crisp up tofu for pho or ramen.
Also, we don’t bake bread on convect setting. That’s a new one to me. We use preheated covered cast iron or clay baking pans for bread. Uncover for the last 10-15 minutes to get good color on the crust.
I think what is going on is that the convection of air causes things to cook faster rather than the fan actually heating up the air. So if something normally takes 20 minutes at 350, it may only take 17(?) minutes if the fan is running. To compensate for that the oven lowers the temperature when the fan is going so it cooks at 325 or whatever for 20 minutes.
An example of this in reverse is when you blow on something hot to cool it off. The movement of air pulls the heat away faster, so it cools off sooner than if it was just sitting there.
Yes, I’m pretty sure that’s what’s happening. Although another way of looking at it is that still air will be slightly chilled by the piece of food, and turning on the fan blows away the cooler air, replacing it with air at the stated temperature. In some sense, all “traditional” recipes take into account that the air next to your food isn’t as hot as “the oven”, and convection recipes don’t need to make that adjustment.
I get it. So when I’m fully up to temp in “Bake 400F” mode and then I set “Bake Convect, 400F”, the over automatically overrides that to 360F (as observed in my case) and kicks in with the fan. So it’s not telling me that the temp in currently 360F when I switch. It’s telling me what temp it’s actually cycling to maintain with convection on. I get it now. Ignorance fought.
ETA: I observe this without opening the oven door or changing any other conditions inside. Food is either already in there from a while back or not in there yet as I’m just pre-heating the oven.
I have convection bake and roast and I can’t find a darn thing stating any different nor have I seen any, however if I got the electric oven model instead of the gas oven that setting does make a difference. Though I forgot what that difference was.
When I bake an artisan loaf in the way you describe, using a preheated covered cast iron vessel, I don’t use convection for that. I think the idea of using such a vessel is to create a mini-oven where the best environment for the bread to bake is contained within that vessel. It doesn’t make sense to use convection for that.
However, in my experience any loaf that is open to the whole oven, whether baked on a stone, in a cradle or in an open pan, will benefit from convection heat.
The user guide for convection use with my oven directs that the following foods benefit most from use of convection heat: Cookies, pies, breads, poultry, roasts and air leavened foods such as angel food cake, souffles, cream puffs and meringue shells.
Hopefully there is some useful information here. 