While conventional ovens are trusted kitchen appliances being used for baking and roasting, they do not always manage to cook the food on the sides. It results in crispy and brown top and bottom, and almost raw sides. If you are struggling with this issue, you can replace the conventional oven with a convection oven. It cooks the food uniformly and fast due to the integrated fan that allows for air to circulate throughout the oven chamber evenly. But let’s dive deeper into the differences between these two types of oven.
1. Working principle
The first major difference between the two ovens is the way of operation. They may look identical on the outside, but the processes taking place inside are different. A conventional oven uses two heating elements located at the top and at the bottom. It means the food that stays on the rack will receive most of the heat from the top and bottom, while on the sides the temperature will be lower. Hence, the sides of the food will always get cooked slower and be less crispy. A convection oven doesn’t allow for the creation of hot and cold pockets, because it uses a fan that makes air circulate throughout the entire oven chamber evenly. It means the food will be cooked uniformly and equally fast from all sides.
2. Preheating time
If you hate waiting for the oven to preheat, go and buy a convection oven whose preheating is much faster. For a conventional oven, the preheating will take place slower due to the cold pockets that always tend to neutralize the heat that comes from top and bottom sources. Convection oven at Kenwood Malaysia uses a fan-driven uniform heating source that sends hot air in each and every corner of the oven cavity, denying any cold spots that bring the average temperature down. As a result, the oven preheats much faster.
3. Cook’s implication
If you wonder how many times you will have to intervene in the cooking process, in case of a convection oven the answer is never. The fan distributes the air to the food evenly, ensuring it gets cooked equally well from all sides. For a conventional oven, you may have to open the oven once or twice to rotate the food around. Given that inside a conventional oven there are places with higher temperature and lower temperature, the food may receive less heat in certain areas. That’s why, you will have to monitor the cooking process and intervene in it half-way to adjust the position of the food so that it gets more or less uniformly cooked.
4. Price
If you want to experience the cooking benefits of a convection oven, you will have to pay extra money to have it in your kitchen. The convection system is more expensive than a conventional heating mechanism, hence the increased price. But this investment will seem a smart one in the future, as you will benefit from faster and more uniform cooking and more crispy and delicious dishes.
