Speciality Appliances

Cookworks Mini Oven

3.5(12)

£109.99In stock

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #551418 in Kitchen & Housewares
  

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

26 of 31 people found the following review helpful.
very good oven with some practice
By fran
COMPARISONS AND WARRANTIESI bought this Cookworks oven after having used a conventional, full sized oven, halogen oven and a russel hobs mini convection oven. The russel hobs broke after about 2 yrs and the halogen after 5 months. I can't first stress enough if you want your money to last longer, then get at least a 3 yr guarantee and if your decide to fork out quite a bit then look at 5 yrs but look closely at the terms of the policy as sometimes they're not worth it. (Argos do good value 3yr extended warranties). Halogens are well known for not lasting long till the bulb goes (likely to blow from 1-3 years) and then cost relatively too much to buy a new bulb get someone to fit it. If your thinking about getting a microwave instead or a combi oven, are you really gonna get it checked every year to make sure it's not leaking? I have seen at laskys they include annual checks with their extended warranties, but even then, what about when the warranty expires? Even if you do annual checks, what about if it starts leaking a few months after the check?THE FAN, AND THE ELEMENTSAnyway, I now realise that the fan stops mini convection ovens from burning the food from either the top or bottom elements by spreading the heat more evenly and allowing you to do some proper baking. (the Russel Hobbs tended to burn). With the elements so close to the food relative to a conventional full sized oven and without the fan your looking at an effect which makes it almost like a grill.Also, the Cookworks has elements at both the top and bottom. My halogen was pretty good but with no bottom element, large volumes such as decent sized cakes, bread and pies would not cook underneath very well. I never used the extender ring but although it would give more space, I expect this problem would be amplified as the bottom would be even further away from the heat source. Even thin crispy pizzas would not crisp underneath and remain under-cooked and a bit soggy. The halogen I had was 1400 watts so it could supply the heat but just not exactly with the right choice of direction.THE LIGHTThis cookworks oven doesn't have a light tho but it is pretty easy to see the food inside, just doesn't look as good as the halogen bulb does.THE BUILDBuild quality is good. No digital controls to go wrong, good sturdy dials.THE TIMER HEAT CONTROLSays in the manual that it doesn't automatically turn the heat off when the timer ends but it actually does seem to turn off automatically which is a bonus compared to a standard conventional oven.GETTING THE SETTING AND TEMPERATURE RIGHTCooking with both top and bottom heating elements and the fan seems to be the safest, most versatile setting but contrary to a standard oven, having the fan on actually seems to make the overall heating effect cooler so I've found I need to have it about 30-40 degrees hotter than the recipe requires which is a significant amount really. So bear in mind the temperature guage goes to 230 degrees but with both elements and fan you'll only get it up to round 200. On the other hand, the heats going to be getting into the middle of the larger volumes more effectively so you won't get things burnt on the outside and undercooked inside. The fan is not a failsafe however, so if something is prematurely brown or crisped on top for example but has a while still to cook then sling some tin foil over it for a bit, maybe taking off a few minutes before you eventually take it out. With the fan off, I need to experiment more but I'm finding it does get possible hotter than the guage claims but this is dependent on which shelf the food goes on.TIPS AND RECIPE TRIALSYou have a good choice of 3 shelf locations. You can cook a good sized souffle in there, in fact two if you have a smaller additional dish at the side.Cooked a lovely sponge. Jacket potatoes took quite a while, next time, I'll switch the fan off sooner in order for the jacket to get really crispy. I'd cut very big ones in half or you'll just be waisting electricity. Same goes for roast potatoes - big pieces could mean double the cooking time and less surface area available to get crispy.with the Russel Hobs, I discovered (unfortunatley on christmas day) that if you totally load up the oven, things will take a lot longer to cook if they do cook at all! that was 1100w tho so less powerful but I expect the same principal would apply for this oven.SAFETYIt does slip around quite easily on the work surface so be careful about that (cats, children, dogs etc.).