You didn’t know these things about using the oven yet

Practically everyone owns an oven. Whether you use it to practice for The Great British Bake Off or you just use it to heat up your frozen pizza, no home cook can do without it. No matter your cooking skills, everybody should know these six tips on how to heat, clean and make the most out of using the oven.

Some of these things about using the oven will definitely surprise you.

Preheating

You know the deal; you’ve been working all day and want to quickly put a frozen pizza or lasagna into the oven when you get home. Unfortunately, preheating the thing takes an awfully long time sometimes, all while your stomach is growling angrily! Luckily, there’s a hack for that. If your oven has a grill setting, you can put that on max for three to five minutes. After those few minutes, put your oven on the setting you need and you’ll see it’ll be at the right temperature in no time at all.

Rack

A lot of people make the mistake of always heating all of their dishes in the same position in the oven. But, even if you have properly preheated your oven, the temperature won’t be exactly the same throughout the entire oven. In many ovens, the heating elements are located at the top and at the bottom of the oven, so the position of your oven rack is important for the dish you’re cooking. For example, it’s best to put your pizza and grilled vegetables at the bottom of the oven, so the bottom of the pizza becomes nice and hot. Lasagnas and oven dishes are better off cooking at the top of the oven, so the top gets a nice brown colour. Cookies and other baked goods should be baked in the middle of the oven to make sure they’re evenly baked all the way through.

Grill setting

The grill setting is intimidating to a lot of people because it can burn your food pretty quickly. It’s a very handy setting, though, because it can make your dishes very tasty and crunchy. If you want to use the grill setting, it’s best to first try it out. By placing a few slices of bread in a row in your oven and turning on the grill you can find out which part of the grill is hottest. The spot where the slices of bread are crispiest is the best spot to grill in. Another tip is to keep the door of the oven open ever so slightly so the built up steam can escape. This will prevent soggy food.

Want to know about the other three tips and mistakes? Go to the next page!

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