Should I buy a gas or electric oven?

MrandMrsB

Hope this is the right place to post this.

We do not have mains gas in our house but we have a solid fuel Rayburn to use in the winter, so we need to buy a cooker for the summer.

Money is not the issue here - we simply want to buy the best cooker on the market that is appropriate for our needs, hopefully one that will last us for the rest of our lives.

After much deliberation and research we have opted for a proper free-standing cooker with LPG hob.

My question is: should we go for an electric or gas oven? I believe some are "dual fuel", which I assume means gas / electric. Or should we buy a fan oven, a conventional electric oven, or a gas oven? Do I need one or two ovens? Is it possible to buy a conventional oven with a grill......I need to cover the hob with a worktop during the winter, so it must not have an eye-level grill.

I only use an oven to bake veg, muffins, cakes and bread.

An assistant in John Lewis told me that fan ovens all blow cake / muffin mixtures, so the conventional top oven should be used for this. When I phoned the manufacturer (Cannon) they disagreed! Our fan oven definitely blows cake / muffin mixture, but it's a cheapo old one.

Any thoughts much appreciated as I am cooking on a camping hob at present!

Thank you.

flashnazia

I have gas and it's ok but no good for cake - if I make a sandwich cake it's always uneven because the heat is uneven. On the other hand gas as a fuel will have water as a bi-product which means food doesn't dry out in the oven.

If money was no object I would get gas WITH a fan. They are quite uncommon and expensive though.

MrandMrsB

Thanks Flashnazia. I forgot to say that I have never owned a modern cooker: before I had this useless electric thing, I had an ancient (well over 50 years old?) gas one that was absolutely brilliant.

Whether I can find an LPG convertible cooker with a fan is another matter. Will speak with John Lewis again tomorrow. Somehow gas seems more real, if you get my meaning. I like to be able to see a flame!

If I can't find one, do you think I should go for electric with or without a fan? Any thoughts please???

garethgas

I think the best combination is a gas oven with a fan. STOVES make a good, solid product but I'm not able to recommend a particular model.
Three things to note though:
1. Cookers vary hugely in quality. In fact most lack some feature or other e.g. it has everything you want except a solid cast pan support that doesn't wobble or there's only 2 shelves and you want 3.
2. A fan oven doesn't have the heat zones that conventional ovens have but are quicker. (I'm dubious about them being more efficient because your also running a fan).
3. Whatever you buy, it will have different characteristics to your old cooker. You'll need to have a few practice runs to find the optimum settings for the more delicate things like sponges. cakes and bread.

My advice is to get some online reviews then check them out in person to see if they're solid or tinny, are the knobs/buttons likely to break after a few years.
Also, the most useless thing on a cooker is the timer. Everyone uses it for the first week or two then never again. It also adds about £100 to £200 to the price.

I hope you find my post helpful.

vasseur

If I was doing my kitchen again I would go for electric double oven with gas hob.

Good point about the timers!

Cooker_expert

The gas fan oven is no longer made, and as an ex technical engineer for the manufacturer I would have advised to steer well clear...... It was a disaster.

A word of warning if you are planning to buy a cannon, it's merely a rehashed indesit which unfortunately will be nowhere near as good as the real cannon cookers that were made in the uk up till a few years ago when indesit closed the factory.

If you want fan and conventional cooking then you need to look for a multiple function oven that will have both options available in the same oven.

Armchair23

I went for a gas hob and electric double oven. The small oven is mainly used as a grill. The large oven has the option for convection and fan (along with fancy settings I don't think I've ever used).

You pay quite a premium to have both options I think, fan now seems the standard, but it's well worth it if you cook every day.

Sometimes you want to cook two items that need slightly different temperatures and you can do that in a convection oven by using the different shelves but not using fan .

If you're choosing a gas hob make sure you get one that is big enough to take large pots and pans on the hob together .

pinkteapot

polesalot wrote: »

If I was doing my kitchen again I would go for electric double oven with gas hob.

Good point about the timers!

This is what we have had since last summer and I love it!

Oven: electric over gas every time. Gas ovens I've used just seem soooo slow to cook anything! Our main oven is an electric fan oven which is excellent. Our top oven is electric non-fan and I use this one for warming plates when cooking dinner, or for cooking if I'm doing lots of oven food that needs different temperatures. I also use it for baking as the electric oven can be a bit fierce for cakes and other goodies. Also means you can grill in there while using the main oven.

Incidentally, I have cooked cakes/bread in the main fan oven and I haven't seen any wind trails in the top surface. :rotfl: As I said, I find it can be a little fierce for baking (particularly things like baked cheesecake - the top can brown a bit) so I do sometimes use the top oven or need to reduce cooking temperatures.

Hob: I previously had a fairly naff electric hob and I had no control. If something was bubbling too hard, I'd turn down the hob and it would take ten minutes for it to cool down at all! Cue lots of pans bubbling over or being lifted up every couple of minutes. Electric hobs have improved and some of the new ones are much more responsive. Personally though, I love the control that my gas hob gives. No warm up time and instant heat reduction when turned down. As I said, there are very good electric hobs these days (induction hobs I believe?) but some require particular types of saucepan to be used.

pinkteapot

garethgas wrote: »

e.g. it has everything you want except a solid cast pan support that doesn't wobble or there's only 2 shelves and you want 3.

The latter isn't a big issue. We got one of these a few years ago:

http://www.betterware.co.uk/productdetails.aspx?pid=019592&language=en-GB

Used it in our last oven and in the new one to add an extra shelf. It's not as deep as our proper shelves but the width is adjustable so it will fit most ovens.

MrandMrsB

Thanks so much, that is wonderful. Sorry about not having answered sooner but I did not see them.....useless with computers so did not know how to find this.

I thought Cannon might be good because John Lewis sells them! Does anybody know which makes are best apart from Stoves? I would be most grateful.

John Lewis told me that conventional electric cookers are better for baking than fan ones, and since I only use the oven for baking and veg dishes I thought it might be the right choice. My sister has a degree in catering, but she doesn't bake nowadays although she thought fan ovens were suitable for everything.

I did not realise that timers add so much to the cost of the cooker. I wouldn't use it because I seem to know when food is cooked, anyway I would not hear it outside the house / throughout the house.

Problem is that I need to buy the cooker without having seen it first, and have no idea which features would be useful to me, in fact I didn't even know they had special features!

Thanks pinkteapot - that has clarified things. Am still wondering whether I'm best with a conventional electric oven though. On the other hand I cooked all kinds of cakes, biscuits, muffins, bread, etc in my old gas oven and they came out fine.....it didn't seem slow to me. So still not sure which to go for. Because it will probably be the last cooker I buy, I want to get it right. Am going to check out Which? later.

Thanks so much, Mrs B.

devotee

Just buy a multifunction single oven that gives you an option of fan and conventional cooking, plus they also come with grill etc. Fan oven also gives you the option of cooking a couple of things at the same time.
And if money is no object get an induction hob, very quick to heat and cool off, easy to clean and no "gas" smells.