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As some of you may or may not know my wife and I are planning in moving into an RV full time in the next couple of years. One of the things she is worried about is making muffins, she loves them. Most of the coaches we have been looking at have combination microwave/convection ovens. Will these bake things well? If so, what adjustments to you have to make to the cooking time/temp? I saw one video that said to reduce the temperature by 25 deg. and cut 20% from the time. I this about right?
I have had convection ovens since 1996. Absolutely love them - they are the best for baking, and that's what all professional bakers use because the warm air moves around the food ensuring even baking. I drop the temperature 5-10 degrees and shorten baking time by 5-10 minutes or so. You get a feel after a while and how the individual oven does, just takes a little experimenting. I love the jumbo silicon cups for muffins. In fact I use the silicon bakeware for all my baking, even though with DH kidney disease, that has been greatly reduced.
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Barb & Dave O'Keeffe
2002 Alpine 36 MDDS (Figment II), 2018 Ford C-Max HYBRID
We have the Convection/Microwave built-in the motorhome. We barely use the convection part of it. Did a few times but gets the interior temp a climbing. We do have a Breville counter top convection and use that quite a bit. Did cookies, muffins, pizza. Works real good and doesn't seem to transfer as much heat like the built-in.
You can successfully bake about everything in a convection/microwave and the manual will help you adjust recipes. We did bake in our convection/microwave for many years but when our old toaster died we bought a Breville Smart Oven (like TRAILERKING) and use it almost exclusively for baking. It can also broil, which we use more than we expected. The one thing my wife could not do with convection/microwave was bake meringue pies since the meringue would fal, but the Breville does not have to use convection, so the meringue does not fall.
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Bill Joyce, 40' 2004 Dutch Star DP towing an AWD 2020 Ford Escape Hybrid Journal at http://www.sacnoth.com Full-timing since July 2003
We use ours frequently, sometimes baked goods may not get quite as brown on top and unlike Barb, we actually have to increase the temp about 10 degrees. Overall I'm happy to just have the convection oven, had a propane oven in our previous 2 RVs and found it a pain to use so they just because expensive storage locations. In this rig, without the propane oven, I have 3 extra drawers in the kitchen which is a huge bonus for storage.
As others have noted…a convection microwave bakes just fine. You'll need to adjust time/temp…but how much and which way depends on what kind you get. We don't actually bake in our convection microwave…it's just a microwave for us and like others we have a Breville 800 which bakes, slow cooks, makes toast, and broils steaks/fish/whatever just fine.
Any man who starts his post with "Help, my wife is worried....." is o.k. with me. It means he's got his eye on the prize----a happy wife.
I am certified as a chef and can tell you there is nothing better than a convection oven for baking. I have never gone by how long something should bake--I always just am aware of the status of doneness. As for temperature, I used to make pizzas in my oven at 400 degrees and still use that temp. in my convection oven. What has changed is the need to open the oven half way through and turn the pizza as the convection oven blows the hot air around what you are baking and is a more uniform way to cook/bake.
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Reminds me of my safari in Africa. Somebody forgot the corkscrew and for several days we had to live on nothing but food and water.
Yepper Chefmom, happy wife, happy life. It looks like the only drawback to the convection oven is the time and temp thing, along with maybe a size restriction depending upon the oven. I was a little confused by your last line, do I have to turn things in the convection oven or was that your old oven? It sounds like your old oven but I've heard (actually read) that convection ovens require a turn.
I have to be the broken cog here. It might be because our unit is a low wattage piece of crud or something but we absolutely hate cooking in our convection oven in the RV. We had convection when we had the house and loved it but not in the RV. It sees to take forever to get ready, we certainly have to cook much longer, as mentioned it does not brown anything, it's loud, it's plain terrible.
On the bright side we also bought a Breville toaster oven and it has changed everything for us, love love love it. If it wasn't for the microwave portion of our microwave // convection oven we could rip it out and mount the Beville there (if that could even be done) and never look back.
Sorry to be the downer.
OK. I have to bring this up, but I hate to. The wife loves her Breville oven, however, we have to be very careful of what electrical appliances and such are running when she turns the thing on. If we miss turning something off, it trips a breaker in our inverter/charger and I get to go out into the weather, take out some storage tubs, and lean in to press the breaker switch.
Terry
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Terry and Jo
2010 Mobile Suites 38TKSB3 2008 Ford F450 2019 Ford Expedition Max as Tag-along or Scout
In our RV the microwave/convection and Breville oven both go through the inverter/charger, which is on a separate 30AMP subpanel. We have to be careful running either one along with other loads or we can trip the main 30AMP breaker. Luckily the subpanel is in a bedroom cabinet, so easy to get to. We learned long ago what we can run at the same time, both on 30AMP and 50AMP service, and it has been years since we tripped a breaker. It does help that both of us are numbers oriented and trained engineers.
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Bill Joyce, 40' 2004 Dutch Star DP towing an AWD 2020 Ford Escape Hybrid Journal at http://www.sacnoth.com Full-timing since July 2003
In this video, I fixed a typical, easy dinner for RV living; and take it with the bake Berry Banana Vanilla Muffins - doctored up from a simple mix. It is the first actual baking that has been done in my RV oven. And I share it with you.