Don't mean to barge in on you girls, but I enjoy cooking fancy meals in our RV.  I found that putting a stone from Pampered Chef on the bottom of the oven helps even out the heat and eliminate burning on the bottom while the top goes uncooked.  Also have a convection oven that Judy enjoys using.

Darrell 

We also put a pizza stone in and it does help even the temperature.

Interesting that husband, Fred, posted to this topic with exactly the opposite of what I think. Yes, we do have a stone in the oven, and it may help the temperature. That said, I don't use the LP oven if I have the amps to use the convection. I can't ever seem to get the temperature accurately where I want it. Every time I have used the LP oven, I put an oven thermometer in it to check the temperature before I put the food in. No matter how I try to adjust it to get it right, I have little success. I don't mind that for things like casseroles or meat roasting. But for me, it's too erratic to bake things like cakes, breasd, rolls or such that are so sensitive to time and temperature for proper rising, etc. The convection is so much more dependable, I absolutely love it. We would have had a plain microwave anyway, so getting it as a convection/microwave didn't add anything spatially. Definitely an option I would not want to do without.

Hi Linda,

Had to put in my two-cents worth of info. I had lots of trouble with our rv oven, then I read in Trailer Life magazine to put unglazed 4" by 6" ceramic tiles in the bottom. Our oven took 6. I also use the better heavy duty cookie sheets and baking pans. That has helped alot. I still set a timer and rotate all the stuff I bake. I have found that the back of my oven gets the hottest,so by turning the pan (but do it carefully so cakes don't fall) it helps keep things from burning.

Hope that helps. I went to Home Depot and got the stones.

Ann

Hi Deb,

Thanks for the compliment!

flyone

I see no one has posted yet so thought I would give you my 2 cents worth in case you are waiting to bake something!  I am one of the lucky ones who still had one Pampered Chef baking stone left after my big yard sale! So, after reading the recommendations of using it or an unglazed tile I decided to give it a try. I baked a caked today at 350 degrees for 35 minutes & it came out browned perfectly top & bottom. I put the stone on the rack right above the flame, NOT all the way on the bottom. It would be under the flame then, & I think the purpose is to try & disperse the heat a bit more evenly.

I actually researched on the web a bit to see if anyone else recommended this because I ran out of time waiting for a post to your question & needed to bake my cake this morning! The key seems to be to keep the stone (or tile) small enough that there is still some air circulation around it. One recommendation was a 12 x 12 inch tile. Mine was a bit longer (more rectangular) than that, but it worked great. I will be removing it from the oven when we move on Monday. Don't want it flying all around! Hope this helps...

P.S. You can find the Jello cake recipe in the recipe link.

Lee Ann

 

Hi,
The stone goes on the shelf just over the burners. The stone can be as large as will fit, we use a 16" diameter pizza stone and it really evens out the temperature.
We also keep it in all the time and have never had a a problem with it on a move. And we've had some cabinets dump, so it's pretty secure in there.
Fred

I once took my Ronco rotisserie and cooked a 10 pound turkey with all the trimmings on the end of the picnic table.  Fed twelve people.  It worked out really great - everyone in the campground got a kick out of seeing that bird go round and round.  Mine is not real heavy and doesn't take up too much space.  In an rv you could also keep it in the basement until you were ready to use it.  You could also use it to cook chicken - shiskabobs -steaks or hamburgers. Thus making it something you would use more often.  It is one of the luxury items I will be taking with me in my fifth wheel.

Jenny

PS  Fred, you can find a 7-8 pound turkey at Wal mart!!  That's where i bought mine.

We are fortunate to have enough storage in our kitchen for what we need, but I know many do not. The problem with putting stuff in the 'basement' is that for me anyway, if I have to go out there and dig around, or move stuff to get at it, I'm not going to use it. However, if it's an appliance you don't use often, but just have to have for occasional times, or cooking something special, there's no reason you can't put it in the basement.

While I'm posting in this topic, I might as well say that all this talk about the RV oven doing a great job made me go back and revisit it. I made one of my famous apple pies the other day in the regular oven. Mostly I did it because the total cooking time was 45 to 55 minutes, (plus preheat time) and I did not want to listen to the convection exhaust fan that long. The pie came out great. Then a couple of days later, I made chocolate chip cookies in it, and they came out great too. So thanks everyone for talking up the LP oven. I have a new respect for it

Oops, forgot to mention, one of the downsides of the LP oven was that it took 30 minutes to get up to temperature (450); requires early upfront planning.

-- Edited by dreamjosie at 11:38, 2006-09-03

Another thing to consider when cooking cakes, sponges etc is the altitude you are at when you are baking these type of items.

When we lived in the UK 1960s to 1990, my baking came out beautifully and rose perfect, when we moved to Alberta I had to relearn recipes based on "high altitude" cooking. My Yorkshire Puddings were a disaster for a couple of years until I found the recipes for "high altitude" cooking. Even today when we go to our Fla home my baking comes out beautifully still compared to in Alberta so that combined with your RV oven issues using stones will have an affect = Just saying FWIW.

Being homebodies and not often eating out, we cook in our RV propane Oven all the time regular baked goods and full roast dinners including the joints of meat. Have to admit I'm getting keen to get that Instant Pot that everyone was raving about a couple of months and so backlong. Just because we love boon docking not sure how energy efficient it might be :)