Built-in ovens: How to buy the best oven Oven features
Whether it's features to make cooking easier, accessories for specialist cooking tasks or hi-tech solutions to the age-old problem of keeping the oven clean, our guide to oven features has it covered.
Double ovens
Double-electric ovens offer you more cooking options
A double oven will offer you more cooking options and the ability to cook dishes at different temperatures simultaneously. Some have grills in both ovens for extra flexibility.
Grill
Whether they’re at eye-level or part of the oven itself, good grills spread heat widely and evenly across the grill pan.
Fan ovens
Most electric ovens come with a fan that helps to distribute the heat evenly around the oven cavity.
Multi-function oven cooking
Many ovens are multi-function, which allows you to cook with a combination of heat from the top and the bottom of the oven, the grill and fan.
Steam ovens
Steam your food in a steam oven
Some ovens also have a steam function with an integral water tank. The water is vaporised and provides a quick healthy cooking method.
Oven doors
Most of the ovens we've tested have drop-down doors. It can be inconvenient if you have to lean across a large door to place dishes on the oven shelves, especially if you have a bad back. Some oven doors have glass panels that can be removed, which makes them much easier to clean.
Recipe function
This function automatically programs the optimum time, duration and settings for various foods. We cooked chicken using this function, and found that it worked well in most cases.
Oven meat probes
Plunge this probe into a joint and it tells you when its tip (and thus the centre of the meat) is at optimum temperature and the joint is cooked. Make sure the whole probe is buried or it will conduct heat from the oven, giving a falsely high temperature reading, and you’ll end up with undercooked meat.
Oven pizza mode
A pizza mode is designed to ensure a perfectly cooked pizza with a crispy base. When we tested it, we found in most ovens this gave slightly better results than just using the fan mode. It’s worth considering if you eat a lot of pizza.
Oven timers
A minute-minder function turns the oven off after a set amount of time, which is helpful when trying avoid over-cooked food. Advanced timers let you pre-program start and end times, so you can return home and dinner will be ready to serve.
Oven shelves
Telescopic shelves make loading and unloading ovens easy
Non-tip shelves offer some extra protection when dealing with hot and heavy dishes. Instead of reaching into the oven, you can pull out the shelf itself. Telescopic shelf runners are a superior feature to non-tip shelves, as they enable the trays or shelves to be fully pulled out of the oven cavity without the risk of a heavy roast chicken falling on to the floor. Only high-end models tend to have them as standard, but some manufacturers offer them as an accessory for £50 or more.
Oven child lock
A child lock lets you lock the control panel, although not the door, so that the oven can’t be accidentally turned on.
Catalytic and pyrolytic oven cleaning
Rough surfaces inside the oven catch, absorb and break down food spills, which are burned away during normal cooking, making your oven walls easier to keep clean. Pyrolytic oven programs burn off dirt and grease at up to about 500°C. All you do is sweep out the ash afterwards. They can take two hours, and for safety the oven door will lock during this time.
Oven cleaners
Specialist oven cleaners are made of strong stuff and can be corrosive, so be careful how you handle them, always read the label and store out of reach of children.
Ovens reviewed by Which?
Which? has tested and reviewed ovens from manufacturers including ovens from manufacturers including AEG-Electrolux, Baumatic, Beko, Belling, Bosch, Delonghi, Electrolux, Fagor, Gorenje, Hotpoint, Indesit, John Lewis, Miele, Neff, New World, Siemens, Smeg, Stoves, Whirlpool and Zanussi.
Check out the Which? oven reviews for the latest Best Buys.